Greek Root
1. -agog, -agogue
2. -anthrop
3. -arch4. -auto5. biblio6. bi-, bio7. chrom8. chron9. -crac-, -crat10. crypt
11. demo12. derm13. dox
14. dynam15. -gam16. geo17. -graph18. -gyn19. hem20. hetero21. homo22. hydro23. log
24. macro25. metri, meter26. micro27. mono28. morph29. neo-
Common Greek Roots
Meaning
Examples
leader
demagog, pedagogue
human, man
anthropology, anthropomorphic, misanthrope
chief, leader,
archangel, monarch, archaic, archenemy
ruler
self
autobiography, automobile, autocracy
arising from
automaton
within
book
bibliography, bibliophile
life
biosphere, biography, autobiography,
biology,
antibiotic
color
chromatic, monochrome, polychrome
chronicle, chronology, chronometer,
time
synchronize
autocrat, democracy, bureaucrat, democracy,
rule, ruler
plutocrat
hidden
cryptogram, cryptology, cryptic
people
demography, democracy, epidemic
skin
dermatology, epidermis, hypodermic
belief, opinion orthodoxy, paradox, heterodoxy
power
dynamo, hydrodynamics
marriage
monogamy, polygamy, bigamy
earth
geopolitical, geology, geography, geothermal
writing,
graphology, biography, telegraph, digraph,
printing
orthography, geography
gynecologist, misogynist, androgynous,
woman
polygyny
blood
hematology, hemophilia, hemoglobin
heterosexual, heterodoxy, heterodox
other, different
heterogeneous
same
homosexual, homogeneous, homogenized
dehydrate, rehydrate, hydraulics,
water
hydroelectric, hydroplane
study, field of, biology, geology, etymology, cardiology,
word
neologism, monologue
large
macrocosm, macroeconomics
measure
geometric, thermometer, odometer
small
microscope, microcosm, microeconomics
one, alone,
monologue, monotheism, monarchy,
single
monogamy, monogram, monopoly
form, structure metamorphosis, amorphous, morpheme,
morphology
new, recent
neologism, neo-liberal, neonatology.
 !!!
1
30. neuro31. -nym-, -onym
nerve
word, name
32. ortho-
straight,
correct
all, every
33. pan34. path35. phil-, philo36. phobia
feeling,
suffering
like, lover of
37. phon-, phono-
exaggerated
fear
sound, voice
38. poly-
many, several
39. proto40. psych-
42. tele-
first
soul, spirit,
mind
wisdom,
knowledge
distant, far off
43. theo-
god, deity
44. therm45. -tomy
46. zoo
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
heat
cutting
animal
41. soph
neolithic
neurology, neurosis, neurobiology
synonym, acronym, eponymous, anonymous,
pseudonym
orthodox, orthodontist, orthopedic
pantheism, Pan-Hellenic, panorama,
pandemic
sympathy, apathy, empathy, pathos,
telepathy, pathology
philosophy, Francophile, bibliophile,
philately, philanthropy
photophobia, claustrophobia, agoraphobia
telephone, euphony, cacophony, phonograph,
phonogram
polygon, polygamy, polyandry, polygyny,
polytechnic, polytheism
prototype, protoplasm, protobiology
psychology, psychic, psychosomatic,
psychobiography
philosophy, sophisticated, sophomore (wise
fool)
telephone, telepathy, telegram, television,
telekinetic
theology, polytheism, atheist, pantheism,
monotheism, theocentric
thermal, thermos, thermometer
appendectomy, splenectomy
zoo, zoology, zooaltry
2
Latin Root
1. ambi
2. aqua
3. aud
4. bene
5. cent
6. circum
7. contra/counter
8. dict
9. duc/duct
10. fac
11. form
12. fort
13. fract
14. ject
15. jud
16. mal
17. mater
18. mit
19. mort
20. multi
21. pater
22. port
23. rupt
24. scrib/scribe
25. sect/sec
26. sent
27. spect
28. struct
29. vid/vis
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
Common Latin Roots
Definition
Examples
both
ambiguous, ambidextrous
water
aquarium, aquamarine
to hear
audience, audition
good
benefactor, benevolent
one hundred
century, percent
around
circumference, circumstance
against
contradict, encounter
to say
dictation, dictator
to lead
conduct, induce
to do; to make
factory, manufacture
shape
conform, reform
strength
fortitude, fortress
to break
fracture, fraction
throw
projection, rejection
judge
judicial, prejudice
bad
malevolent, malefactor
mother
material, maternity
to send
transmit, admit
death
mortal, mortician
many
multimedia, multiple
father
paternal, paternity
to carry
portable, transportation
to break
bankrupt, disruption
to write
inscription, prescribe
to cut
bisect, section
to feel; to send consent, resent
to look
inspection, spectator
to build
destruction, restructure
voice; to call
vocalize, advocate
 !
3
Loanwords
Major Periods of Borrowing
in the History of English
Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language
(the source language). A loanword can also be called a borrowing. The abstract noun
borrowing refers to the process of speakers adopting words from a source language into their
native language. "Loan" and "borrowing" are of course metaphors, because there is no literal
lending process. There is no transfer from one language to another, and no "returning" words to
the source language. They simply come to be used by a speech community that speaks a different
language from the one they originated in.
Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contact between two language communities.
Borrowing of words can go in both directions between the two languages in contact, but often
there is an asymmetry, such that more words go from one side to the other. In this case the
source language community has some advantage of power, prestige and/or wealth that makes the
objects and ideas it brings desirable and useful to the borrowing language community. For
example, the Germanic tribes in the first few centuries A.D. adopted numerous loanwords from
Latin as they adopted new products via trade with the Romans. Few Germanic words, on the
other hand, passed into Latin.
The actual process of borrowing is complex and involves many usage events (i.e.
instances of use of the new word). Generally, some speakers of the borrowing language know the
source language too, or at least enough of it to utilize the relevant words. They adopt them when
speaking the borrowing language. If they are bilingual in the source language, which is often the
case, they might pronounce the words the 4same or similar to the way they are pronounced in the
source language. For example, English speakers adopted the word garage from French, at first
with a pronunciation nearer to the French pronunciation than is now usually found. Presumably
the very first speakers who used the word in English knew at least some French and heard the
word used by French speakers.
Those who first use the new word might use it at first only with speakers of the source
language who know the word, but at some point they come to use the word with those to whom
the word was not previously known. To these speakers the word may sound 'foreign'. At this
stage, when most speakers do not know the word and if they hear it think it is from another
language, the word can be called a foreign word. There are many foreign words and phrases
used in English such as bon vivant (French), mutatis mutandis (Latin), and Fahrvergnügen
(German).
However, in time more speakers can become familiar with a new foreign word. The
community of users can grow to the point where even people who know little or nothing of the
source language understand, and even use the novel word themselves. The new word becomes
conventionalized. At this point we call it a borrowing or loanword. (Not all foreign words do
become loanwords; if they fall out of use before they become widespread, they do not reach the
loanword stage.)
Conventionalization is a gradual process in which a word progressively permeates a
larger and larger speech community. As part of its becoming more familiar to more people, with
conventionalization a newly borrowed word gradually adopts sound and other characteristics of
the borrowing language. In time, people in the borrowing community do not perceive the word
4
as a loanword at all. Generally, the longer a borrowed word has been in the language, and the
more frequently it is used, the more it resembles the native words of the language.
English has gone through many periods in which large numbers of words from a
particular language were borrowed. These periods coincide with times of major cultural contact
between English speakers and those speaking other languages. The waves of borrowing during
periods of especially strong cultural contacts are not sharply delimited, and can overlap. For
example, the Norse influence on English began already in the 8th century A.D. and continued
strongly well after the Norman Conquest brought a large influx of Norman French to the
language.
It is part of the cultural history of English speakers that they have always adopted
loanwords from the languages of whatever cultures they have come in contact with. There have
been few periods when borrowing became unfashionable, and there has never been a national
academy in Britain, the U.S., or other English-speaking countries to attempt to restrict new
loanwords, as there has been in many continental European countries.
The following list is a small sampling of the loanwords that came into English in different
periods and from different languages.
I. Germanic period
Latin
The forms given in this section are the Old English ones. The original Latin source word is given
in parentheses where significantly different. Some Latin words were themselves originally
borrowed from Greek.
It can be deduced that these borrowings date from the time before the Angles and Saxons left the
continent for England, because of very similar forms found in the other old Germanic languages
(Old High German, Old Saxon, etc.). The source words are generally attested in Latin texts, in
the large body of Latin writings that were preserved through the ages.
ancor 'anchor'
butere 'butter' (L < Gr. butyros)
cealc 'chalk'
ceas 'cheese' (caseum)
cetel 'kettle'
cycene 'kitchen'
cirice 'church' (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)
disc 'dish' (discus)
mil 'mile' (milia [passuum] 'a thousand paces')
piper 'pepper'
pund 'pound' (pondo 'a weight')
sacc 'sack' (saccus)
sicol 'sickle'
straet 'street' ([via] strata 'straight way' or stone-paved road)
weall 'wall' (vallum)
win 'wine' (vinum < Gr. oinos)
5
II. Old English Period (600-1100)
Latin
apostol 'apostle' (apostolus < Gr. apostolos)
casere 'caesar, emperor'
ceaster 'city'
(castra 'camp')
cest
'chest'
(cista 'box')
circul 'circle'
cometa 'comet'
(cometa < Greek)
maegester 'master' (magister)
martir 'martyr'
paper 'paper'
(papyrus, from Gr.)
tigle 'tile'
(tegula)
Celtic
brocc 'badger'
cumb 'combe, valley'
(few ordinary words, but thousands of place and river names: London, Carlisle,
Devon, Dover, Cornwall, Thames, Avon...)
III. Middle English Period (1100-1500)
Scandinavian
Most of these first appeared in the written language in Middle English; but many were no doubt
borrowed earlier, during the period of the Danelaw (9th-10th centuries).
anger, blight, by-law, cake, call, clumsy, doze, egg, fellow, gear,
get, give, hale, hit, husband, kick, kill, kilt, kindle, law, low,
lump, rag, raise, root, scathe, scorch, score, scowl, scrape, scrub,
seat, skill, skin, skirt, sky, sly, take, they, them, their, thrall,
thrust, ugly, want, window, wing
Place name suffixes:
-by, -thorpe, -gate
French
Law and government
attorney, bailiff, chancellor, chattel, country, court, crime,
defendent, evidence, government, jail, judge, jury, larceny, noble,
parliament, plaintiff, plea, prison, revenue, state, tax, verdict
Church
abbot, chaplain, chapter, clergy, friar, prayer, preach, priest,
religion, sacrament, saint, sermon
Nobility:
baron, baroness; count, countess; duke, duchess; marquis, marquess;
prince, princess; viscount, viscountess; noble, royal
(contrast native words: king, queen, earl, lord, lady, knight, kingly,
queenly)
Military
6
army, artillery, battle, captain, company, corporal,
defense,enemy,marine, navy, sergeant, soldier, volunteer
Cooking
beef, boil, broil, butcher, dine, fry, mutton, pork, poultry, roast,
salmon, stew, veal
Culture and luxury goods
art, bracelet, claret, clarinet, dance, diamond, fashion, fur, jewel,
oboe, painting, pendant, satin, ruby, sculpture
Other
adventure, change, charge, chart, courage, devout, dignity, enamor,
feign, fruit, letter, literature, magic, male, female, mirror,
pilgrimage, proud, question, regard, special
Also Middle English French loans: a huge number of words in age, -ance/-ence, -ant/-ent, -ity, ment, -tion, con-, de-, and pre-.
Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a given word came from French or whether it was taken
straight from Latin. Words for which this difficulty occurs are those in which there were no
special sound and/or spelling changes of the sort that distinguished French from Latin.
IV. Early Modern English Period (1500-1650)
The effects of the Renaissance begin to be seriously felt in England. We see the beginnings of a
huge influx of Latin and Greek words, many of them learned words imported by scholars well
versed in those languages. But many are borrowings from other languages, as words from
European high culture begin to make their presence felt and the first words come in from the
earliest period of colonial expansion.
Latin
agile, abdomen, anatomy, area, capsule, compensate, dexterity,
discus, disc/disk, excavate, expensive, fictitious, gradual, habitual,
insane, janitor, meditate, notorious, orbit, peninsula, physician,
superintendent, ultimate, vindicate
Greek
(many of these via Latin)
anonymous, atmosphere, autograph, catastrophe, climax, comedy, critic,
data, ectasy, history, ostracize, parasite, pneumonia, skeleton,
tonic, tragedy
Greek bound morphemes: -ism, -ize
Arabic via Spanish
alcove, algebra, zenith, algorithm, almanac, azimuth, alchemy, admiral
Arabic via other Romance languages:
amber, cipher, orange, saffron, sugar, zero, coffee
7
V. Modern English (1650-present)
About 1650 was the start of major colonial expansion, industrial/technological revolution, and
significant American immigration. Words from all over the world begin to pour in during this
period. Also, the tendency for specialists to borrow words from Latin and Greek, including
creating new words out of Latin and Greek word elements, continues from the last period and
also increases with the development of science, technology, and other fields.
Words from European languages
French
French continues to be the largest single source of new words outside of very specialized
vocabulary domains (scientific/technical vocabulary, still dominated by classical borrowings).
High culture
ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne,
chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet,
sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire
War and Military
bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff,
bayonet
Other
bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock
French Canadian
chowder
Louisiana French (Cajun)
jambalaya
Spanish
armada, adobe, alligator, alpaca, armadillo, barricade, bravado,
cannibal, canyon, coyote, desperado, embargo, enchilada, guitar,
marijuana, mesa, mosquito, mustang, ranch, taco, tornado, tortilla,
vigilante
Italian
alto, arsenal, balcony, broccoli, cameo, casino, cupola, duo, fresco,
fugue, gazette (via French), ghetto, gondola, grotto, macaroni,
madrigal, motto, piano, opera, pantaloons, prima donna, regatta,
sequin, soprano, opera, stanza, stucco, studio, tempo, torso,
umbrella, viola, violin,
More recent words from Italian American immigrants:
cappuccino, espresso, linguini, mafioso, pasta,
pizza, ravioli, spaghetti, spumante, zabaglione, zucchini
Dutch, Flemish
Shipping, naval terms
avast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight,
keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop,
smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht
8
Cloth industry
bale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap (of cloth),
selvage, spool, stripe
Art
easel, etching, landscape, sketch
War
beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught
Food and drink
booze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops,
stockfish, waffle
Other
bugger (orig. French), crap, curl, dollar, scum, split (orig. nautical
term), uproar
German
bum, dunk, feldspar, quartz, hex, lager, knackwurst, liverwurst,
loafer, noodle, poodle, dachshund, pretzel, pinochle, pumpernickel,
sauerkraut, schnitzel, zwieback, (beer)stein, lederhosen, dirndl
20th century German loanwords:
blitzkrieg, zeppelin, strafe, U-boat, delicatessen, hamburger,
frankfurter, wiener, hausfrau, kindergarten, Oktoberfest, schuss,
wunderkind, bundt (cake), spritz (cookies), (apple) strudel
Yiddish
(most are 20th century borrowings)
bagel, Chanukkah (Hanukkah), chutzpah, dreidel, kibbitzer, kosher, lox,
pastrami (orig. from Romanian), schlep, spiel, schlepp, schlemiel,
schlimazel, gefilte fish, goy, klutz, knish, matzoh, oy vey, schmuck,
schnook,
Scandinavian
fjord, maelstrom, ombudsman, ski, slalom, smorgasbord
Russian
apparatchik, borscht, czar/tsar, glasnost, icon, perestroika, vodka
Words from other parts of the world
Sanskrit
avatar, karma, mahatma, swastika, yoga
Hindi
bandanna, bangle, bungalow, chintz, cot, cummerbund, dungaree,
juggernaut, jungle, loot, maharaja, nabob, pajamas, punch (the drink),
shampoo, thug, kedgeree, jamboree
9
Dravidian
curry, mango, teak, pariah
Persian (Farsi)
check, checkmate, chess
Arabic
bedouin, emir, jakir, gazelle, giraffe, harem, hashish, lute, minaret,
mosque, myrrh, salaam, sirocco, sultan, vizier, bazaar, caravan
African languages
banana (via Portuguese), banjo, boogie-woogie, chigger, goober,
gorilla, gumbo, jazz, jitterbug, jitters, juke(box), voodoo, yam,
zebra, zombie
American Indian languages
avocado, cacao, cannibal, canoe, chipmunk, chocolate, chili, hammock,
hominy, hurricane, maize, moccasin, moose, papoose, pecan, possum,
potato, skunk, squaw, succotash, squash, tamale (via Spanish), teepee,
terrapin, tobacco, toboggan, tomahawk, tomato, wigwam, woodchuck
(plus thousands of place names, including
Ottawa, Toronto, Saskatchewan and the names of more than half the
states of the U.S., including Michigan, Texas, Nebraska, Illinois)
Chinese
chop suey, chow mein, dim sum, tea, ginseng, kowtow, litchee
Malay
ketchup, amok
Japanese
geisha, hara kiri, judo, jujitsu, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai,
soy, sumo, sushi, tsunami
Pacific Islands
bamboo, gingham, rattan, taboo, tattoo, ukulele, boondocks
Australia
boomerang, budgerigar, didgeridoo, kangaroo (and many more in
Australian English)
This information sheet on borrowing was itself shamelessly borrowed from
Professor Suzanne Kemmer.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/loanwords.html
© 2001-2011 Suzanne Kemmer, Last modified 22 Aug 2011
10
Commonly Used Foreign Words and Expressions
Origin Foreign Word or Expression
1. RSVP (répondez, s'il vous plaît)
2. déjà vu
3. faux pas
4. du jour
5. bon voyage
6. alma mater
7. cum laude
8. femme fatale
9. esprit de corps
10. verbatim
11. E pluribus unum
12. prima donna
13. avant-garde
14. status quo
15. joie de vivre
16. carte blanche
17. caveat emptor
18. alpha and omega
19. tabula rasa
20. hoi polloi
21. ad nauseam
22. carpe diem,
23. tempus fugit
24. c’est la vie
25. bona fide
26. savoir faire
27. non sequitur
28. id est
29. enfant terrible
30. terra firma
31. vox populi
32. ad hoc
33. cause célèbre
34. magnum opus
35. persona non grata
36. quid pro quo
37. je ne sais quoi
38. modus operandi
39. nom de plume
40. haute couture
41. mea culpa
42. raison d’être
43. laissez faire
Meaning
11
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
bête noire
en masse
in absentia
sub rosa
schadenfreude
noblesse oblige
sine qua non
deus ex machine
doppelganger
coup d’état
mea culpa
in loco parentis
12