-logy is a
suffix in the
English language, used with words originally adapted from
Ancient Greek language ending in
-λογία (
-logia). The earliest English examples were anglicizations of the
French -logie, which was in turn inherited from the
Latin -logia.
It has two main senses in English:
- a combining form used in the names of sciences or bodies of knowledge (e.g. theology or sociology)
- the root word nouns that refer to kinds of speech, writing or collections of writing (e.g. eulogy or trilogy)
Etymology
In words of the type
theology, the suffix is derived originally from (
-log-) (a variant of ,
-leg-), from the
Greek verb (
legein, "to speak").
["-logy." The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford University Press, 1986. retrieved 20 Aug 2008.] The suffix has the sense of "the character or department of one who speaks or treats of [a certain subject]", or more succinctly, "the study of [a certain subject]".
In words of the type
trilogy, the "-logy" element is derived from the Greek noun (
logos, "speech").
The suffix has the sense of "[a certain kind of] speaking or writing".
["-logy." The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition. Oxford University Press, 1989. retrieved 20 Aug 2008.]-logy versus -ology
In
English names for fields of study, the suffix
-logy is most frequently found preceded by the euphonic connective vowel
o so that the word ends in
-ology. In these Greek words, the
root is always a noun and
-o- is the
combining vowel for all declensions of Greek nouns. However, when new names for fields of study are coined in modern English, the formations ending in
-logy almost always add an
-o-, except when the root word ends in an "l" or a vowel, as in exceptions:
analogy,
dekalogy,
disanalogy,
genealogy,
genethlialogy,
herbalogy (a variant of
herbology),
,
mammalogy,
mineralogy,
paralogy,
,
petralogy (a variant of
petrology),
tetralogy;
;
antilogy,
,
trilogy;
,
;
;
eulogy; and
brachylogy.
Linguists sometimes jokingly refer to
haplology as
haplogy (subjecting the word
haplology to haplology).
Additional usage as a suffix
Per
metonymy, words ending in
-logy are sometimes used to describe a subject rather than the study of it (e.g.
technology). This usage is particularly widespread in medicine; for example,
pathology is often used simply to refer to "the disease" itself (e.g. "We haven't found the pathology yet") rather than "the study of a disease".
Books, journals, and treatises about a subject also often bear the name of this subject (e.g. the scientific journal
Ecology).
When appended to other English words, the suffix can also be used humorously to create
nonce words (e.g.
beerology as "the study of beer",
Wikiology as "the study of Wikipedia"). As with other
classical compounds, adding the suffix to a initial word-stem derived from Greek or
Latin may be used to lend grandeur or the impression of scientific rigor to humble pursuits, as in
cosmetology ("the study of beauty treatment") or
cynology ("the study of dog training").
See also
