Greek or latin base of word

In English grammar, a root is a word or portion of a word from which other words grow, usually through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. By learning root words, you can decipher unfamiliar words, expand your vocabulary, and become a better English speaker. 

The Roots of Words

Most words in the English language are based on words from ancient Greek and Latin. The root of the word «vocabulary,» for example, is ​voc, a Latin root meaning «word» or «name.» This root also appears in such words as «advocacy,» «convocation,» «evocative,» «vocal,» and «vowel.» By dissecting words such as these, etymologists can study how a word has evolved over time and tell us about the cultures they came from.

In some cases, root words might be slightly transformed en route to becoming part of words that we’re familiar with. In the above example, «vowel» is a word that’s clearly related to the voc root and its family of derivative words, and yet the «c» in «voc» is not present. There are several reasons for this sort of pattern, and the changes often depend on what language each individual word comes from, but it serves as a reminder that not every word with the same root will look exactly the same.

Root words are also useful for creating new words, especially in technology and medicine, where new innovations occur frequently. Think of the Greek root word tele, which means «far,» and inventions that traverse long distances, such as the telegraph, telephone, and television. The word «technology» itself is a combination of two other Greek root words, techne, meaning «skill» or «art,» and logos, or «study.»

Because several modern languages share some of the same ancestor languages, it’s not entirely uncommon for several related languages to share root words. For instance, the Latin root voc, described above, is shared by several Romance languages. Connections between languages can be found in the shared roots between them, although one always has to be wary of false cognates — that is, words that sound like they have the same roots (and thus related meanings) but actually don’t.

Greek Root Words

The table below defines and illustrates 25 of the most common Greek roots.

Latin Root Words

The table below defines and illustrates 25 of the most common Latin roots.

​Understanding the meanings of the common word roots can help us deduce the meanings of new words that we encounter. But be careful: root words can have more than one meaning as well as various shades of meaning. In addition, words that look similar may derive from different roots.

In addition, a handful of root words can stand on their own as whole words in and of themselves. This list includes words such as photo, kinesis, chrome, port, and script. Words like this tend to have related meanings on their own, then can also act as roots for longer, more complex words.

Sources

• Bryant, Alice, and Robbins, Jill. «Grow Your Vocabulary by Learning Root Words.» VOANews.com, 28 November 2017.
• Grammarly staff. «Why You Should Learn Roots.» Grammarly.com, 6 February 2016.
• McCammon, Ellen. «50 GRE Words You Should Know.» PrepScholar.com, 8 February 2017.

It may be possible to know why Latin was chosen over Greek (or vice versa) in particular cases. Let’s take hydraulic over «aqualic.» The etymology of «hydraulic» is actually ὕδωρ (water) + αὐλός (pipe). The reason that we don’t have the parallel word from Latin, «aquatubic,» is that the Romans, who admired things Greek, including Greek engineering, had adopted the Greek version in their word for water engine, hydraulica machina. Remember that Latin was the European language of science and engineering into the 17th century.

Why «unity» and not «monity»? It’s only a guess, but perhaps there was a collision of the latter with the variants of «monition,» a word meaning a warning that came from French. After 1066, words of French origin, particularly legal terms (of which «monition» is one), had priority.

The courses of the «lexical streams» that flow into English are complicated. The Romans brought Latin directly to Britain over 150 years or so, starting with Caesar, who also inflicted Latin on the Gauls so the Normans could reinflict it via Old French on Britain a millennium later.

Some words, like «photography» aren’t «natural» linguistic entities, but rather arbitrary «learned coinages,» terms made up on the spot by inventors.

How to know whether a word is Latin, Greek or English?

About 2/3 of words in English come from Latin, and a number of others from Greek; these are especially common in technical and academic vocabulary. Some of the complexities of Latin and Greek based word formation (morphology) are presented here.

1 Latin abbreviations & expressions in academic writing

2 Latin prefixes

The following are common Latin prefixes, with alternate forms resulting from phonological blendings in Latin; for example, ad+simil- → assimilate. A number of such blendings of prefixes and word stems led to double consonant spellings [“CC” below].

3 Latin & Greek plurals

Some Latin and Greek nouns exhibit changes in word endings, which were regular in Latin and Greek, but irregular or semi-regular in English. These are for many nouns ending in -a (Latin feminine nouns), -us (Latin masculine nouns), -um (Latin neuter nouns), and -on (Latin neuter nouns) [note: these “genders” are morphological categories of words, not usually actual biological gender].

Sometimes the Latin plurals are preferred in scientific or technical contexts, while normal -s plurals are preferred in normal contexts (like cactus → cacti / cactuses).

A few nouns have the same form for singular and plural, like species and series.

3.1 Plurals from other languages

A few French irregulars exist, like beau → beaux. Hebrew words often add -im, as in seraph → seraphim, cherub → cherubim; a few Hebrew words have other endings like matzah → matzot. Some words from other languages don’t add plural endings, like samurai.

4 Noun stem changes

Some words undergo changes in the spelling and pronunciation of the stem (base, root word), due to their forms that changed in Latin and Greek.

4.1 Latin & Greek noun stems, singular → plural

Some Greek and Latin nouns change -is to -es (e.g., analysis → analyses), and some Greek and Latin nouns change -ex or -ix to -ices in the plural (e.g., index → indices, codex → codices). For those ending in -ex/-ix, the regular plural with -es is also usually possible in less formal English (indexes, apexes...).

Another pattern in more technical words looks like this:

• stigma → stigmata
• schema → schemata

Other stem changes occur in nouns in technical vocabulary, e.g.,

• corpus → corpora
• genus → generaopus → opera

4.2 Noun stem changes in other words

Latin / Greek noun stem changes sometimes show up in different words derived from the same ancient root, especially in technical words. This becomes apparent in comparing noun stems with other nouns or adjectives derived from them.

There are a few words from related stems in both Latin and Greek (as the two languages were close cousins), such as acute (Greek) and accuracy (Latin); coniferous (Latin, ‘cone-bearing’), metaphor (Greek, “carrying beyond”).

5 Verb stem changes

Stem changes in Latin (and also Greek) verb tenses and participle forms led to different variants of the word roots in English. The main stems are the present and the past perfect participle (similar to teach, taught in English). Occasionally, the simple past form yields some English words. Some stem changes occur when verbs are compounded (e.g., tacit – reticent). Below are some common Latin examples.

The verb facere also spawned other English words through another verb form: the present passive fio/fieri ‘be made, become’ became the suffix -fy as in ‘pacify, sanctify’.