The Thread of Greek and Latin Roots

[Ender]

So I will be posting pretty regularly (err, I take liberty with the word "regularly") cool and useful Greek and Latin and examples of them and perhaps quizzes for which we will trust you not to consult a dictionary or the like. This is one of the things that I plan to do regularly over the summer (yet haven't thus far), and I think posting here will help motivate me.

Of course, there are a myriad of sites for this, but the rewriting and rereading will help (as I browse these forums much more than I google Greek and Latin roots =p), and also I will plan to use many examples and update them and also make quizzes.

I'm thinking about separating the informational thread and the discussion thread (which so pretentiously and unrealistically assumes there will be a discussion), but I'll wait and maybe do that later if it's convenient.

[d&q]

Oh please no....I have had two years of this already! Why would anyone want to learn during summer vacation?  :)

[iago]

Allow me to start the ball rolling with my favorite latin-based word............... Masturbatorium.

But seriously, one of the most useful ones is "polis", which loosely means "city". The reason I like it is that I always get the state "Minnesota" and the city "Minneapolis" mixed up. The only reason that I can tell them apart is by thinking of the suffix.

[Joe]

Hm, there doesn't seem to be too much Latin or Greek on this, but there may be a few. The list of false friends is pretty interesting.

For example, blesser (French) doesn't mean to bless, but to injure.

[Ender]

Quiz:

Match the letters to the corresponding numbers (e.g., an answer would be 1A 2B 3C 4D 5E 6F 7G). Remember, you're not supposed to look them up, lol.

1. anima (Latin)
2. zo (Greek)
3. caco (Latin)
4. phil (Latin)
5. pod (Greek)
6. ped (Greek)
7. ped (Latin)

A. child
B. foot
C. foot
D. animal
E. life, mind
F. love
G. bad

[iago]

Quiz:

Match the letters to the corresponding numbers (e.g., an answer would be 1A 2B 3C 4D 5E 6F 7G). Remember, you're not supposed to look them up, lol.

1. anima (Latin)
2. zo (Greek)
3. caco (Latin)
4. phil (Latin)
5. pod (Greek)
6. ped (Greek)
7. ped (Latin)

A. child
B. foot
C. foot
D. animal
E. life, mind
F. love
G. bad

Well, I'm no expert, but I can hazard some guesses:

1E
2D
3G
4F
5B or 5C
6A
7B or 7C

I guessed at 6 and 7, though. I am decent at ancient roots, but I don't know whether they're greek or latin.

[Ender]

All correct! Good job =P Now Later I'm going to post something informational on them...

[Ender]

Quiz #2:

Spot the roots in the following words. There may be more than one.

1. democrat
2. ethnicity
3. cognate
4. monolith
5. paleolithic
6. euphony
7. cacophony

Example format (you can use whatever you like):

[question#]. [word]: [root1] - [meaning]; [root2] - [meaning]; ...

Example answer:

8. culpable: culp - fault, blame; other_root - it's_meaning

[d&q]

1. demo - people, crat - rule
(rule of the people)

2. ethn - people,  ic - having characterstics of, ity - state of being
(state of being having char of people)

3. cogn - together, ate - to come to be
(to come to be together)

4. mono - one, lith - rock
(one rock)

5. paleo - old , lith - rock, ic - having characteristics of
(having charactersticis of old rock)

6. eu - good, phon - sound, y - state of being
(state of being good sound)

7. caco - bad, phon - sound, y- state of being
(state of being bad sound)

GFG

[Ender]

Great job! You got most of them, with some minor mistakes.

1. demo - people, crat - rule
(rule of the people)

Close. It's dem, not demo, as in demigod. And crat is right.

2. ethn - people,  ic - having characterstics of, ity - state of being
(state of being having char of people)

Yep. ethn also means nation.

3. cogn - together, ate - to come to be
(to come to be together)

Actually, the first root is co (with) and the second is gnatus, the past participle of the Latin infinitive nascor (to be born).

4. mono - one, lith - rock
(one rock)

Yep. mono also means single or alone

5. paleo - old , lith - rock, ic - having characteristics of
(having charactersticis of old rock)

Yep.

6. eu - good, phon - sound, y - state of being
(state of being good sound)

Yep.

7. caco - bad, phon - sound, y- state of being
(state of being bad sound)

Yep.

[d&q]

It is dem and demo, the 'o' is part of the dem root. I know the other meanings of ethn and mono, but I don't agree with you about cognate. That's false etymology, I think.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cognate

Actually its cog in this case, not co or cogn. Prefixes can have different forms, not just one. So it can be dem and demo, or co, con, and cog. And the definition "to come to be" seems to work better than "to be born", since its not always being "born" in the literal sense.

[Ender]

Hmm, I agree that prefixes can come in different forms and cog- is probably also correct. Here's my source though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognate

Maybe it can be interpreted both ways.

I generally think of the form "co" as more useful for learning, though. For example, cog- in "cogitate" is useless. Same with co- in "court," but I can't think of too many words that have cog- as a prefix for "together," whereas a whole bunch for co- come tom ind. Can you come up with any other ones for cog-? I'd look it up but I have to go do laundry now hehe.

[d&q]

Con?

Congregate: Con - with, together; Greg - to flock; ate - to cause to become

To cause to become flocked together.

Construct: Con - with or together, Struct - to build

To build together.

[Joe]

Con is also part of the Spanish language, also meaning with, for those who overlooked it.

[d&q]

That has nothing to do with the topic at hand.  :P