Once Upon a Word: A Word-Origin Dictionary for Kids - Jess Zafarris 2020

From Roots to Trees
Word jungle

Now that you’ve seen some of the parts that can be used to make up words, let’s think about how to use them.

When I was about ten years old, my dad challenged me to figure out what a word meant based on the parts that made it up. The word he gave me was ARCHEOFERROEQUESTRIANOLOGIST. It’s a made-up word, but it’s made up of real roots, prefixes, and suffixes. At first, it meant nothing to me. The word was so long, it sounded like nonsense! But then he repeated it, saying the different parts slowly: archeo . . . ferro . . . equestrian . . . ologist.

So I thought about each part, and what it could mean when they were put together.

Archeo: This part sounded familiar—it was like “archeologist,” someone who digs up ancient artifacts and studies old things.

Ferro: My dad is a scientist, and he had taught me that “Fe” was the symbol for the element iron on the periodic table. It’s short for ferrum, the Latin word for “iron.” So “ferro” means “iron.”

Equestrian: Have you ever had friends who learned horseback riding at an equestrian stable? Equestrian is related to horses.

-ologist: Check the previous charts to see if you can guess the meaning of this ending. I had seen this ending on a lot of words for people who are experts that study specific subjects. A psychologist studies the mind. A meteorologist studies the weather. An archeologist studies old things. So, I knew that this ending meant “study” and described someone who is an expert. Let’s put all of these together: historic/old + iron + horse + someone who is an expert.

Someone who studies old iron horses? As my dad explained, “iron horse” is a term for an old locomotive, or a big train made of iron. Originally, trains were invented to replace teams of horses that pulled heavy carriages. The earliest trains were even pulled by horses before engines and electric power.

So, an “archeoferroequestrianologist” is someone who studies historic trains.

This little game wasn’t just a way to teach me how to dissect made-up words. It was also a way to teach me how to think critically about language. If I could figure out the meaning of words like archeoferroequestrianologist, then I could use this tool to build new words with pieces of words I already knew.

You can do this, too! Flip back to the pages with the charts of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Take one from each chart, and see what sorts of words you can build using them.

Now test your knowledge and see if you can break these words down into their roots, prefixes, and suffixes and guess what they mean:

✵Inquisition

✵Anthropology

✵Magnitude

✵Incredulous

✵Telekinesis

ANSWER KEY

Inquisition: The process of asking questions about something, from in- “in,” + quaerere “seeking, searching” + -tion

Anthropology: The study of humans, from anthropos “human” + -logy “study of”

Magnitude: Greatness, from magnus “great, large” + -tude

Incredulous: Not believing, from in- “not, un-” + credere “believing”

Telekinesis: Motion from afar (with your mind), from tele- “far, far off” + kinein “to move”

Understanding Etymology

In most definitions in this book, you’ll find these key elements:

1 Dictionary

2 DIK-shun-air-ee

3 noun

4 A dictionary, like the one you’re reading right now, is a book full of words. Dictionaries are arranged in alphabetical order and contain information on what words mean and how to pronounce them.

5 The word “dictionary” comes from the Medieval Latin dictionarium, meaning “a collection of words and phrases.” The word was invented around the year 1200 by a teacher named John of Garland. He wrote a book called Dictionarius to help his students learn Latin words.

6 Dictionarius was probably a shortening of the full phrase dictionarius liber, meaning “a book of words.” Dictionarium (the noun form of the word) is made up of the Latin dictio, meaning “a saying” or “a word,” and the ending -arium, meaning “a place where [things] are kept.” Put together, these parts literally mean “a place where words are kept.”

1.The word!

2.Pronunciation: How to say this word out loud. This shows you how each syllable sounds and which one is stressed, or accented.

3.Part of speech: Whether the word is a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, interjection, or exclamation.

4.Definition: What the word means.

5.Background: Historical information about the word.

6.Etymology: The origins of the word and the reasons why it looks the way it does today.

GROWING YOUR FOREST

While it’s fun to impress your friends and teachers by knowing lots of words, learning about etymology isn’t just about having a big vocabulary. When you understand the history and meaning of the words you use, you also gain a better understanding of language—and the world! You can be more creative, communicate better, and master new subjects. You can even make up your own new words.

With a strong understanding of etymology, your possibilities are endless. Here are just a few of the ways you can take what you learn in this book and expand on that knowledge.

→ UNLOCK NEW LANGUAGES

Etymology can help you understand the meaning of words that you’ve never seen or heard of before just by looking at them—even words in other languages! English is made up of words derived from Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, Arabic, Native American languages—and more! With knowledge of roots and word origins, you can learn any of these languages more quickly.

→ BECOME AN UNSTOPPABLE WORD EXPERT

Reading can seem like a tricky obstacle course when you run into a word you’ve never seen before. But with an understanding of etymology, there’s no word that can stop you. Any time you see a long word with many letters, break it down into parts and see if you can guess what each part means, just like we did in the previous section. Before you know it, you’ll be able to guess the meaning of the word perspicacious (to have good judgment), and you’ll be a regular sesquipedalianist, or someone who uses really long words.

→ TACKLE ANY SUBJECT

When you can guess the meaning of any word, you can read any book. Even the most challenging subjects won’t be out of your reach.

In fact, etymology can help you learn these new subjects quickly. As we know, many common words in science, technology, philosophy, and law come from Latin and Greek. You’ll approach these subjects already knowing what the difficult words mean.

The library will be your gateway into endless stories and learning.

→ BECOME A GRAMMAR WIZARD

Etymology can help you understand grammar more easily. Once you understand common roots, prefixes, and suffixes, you’ll get a better understanding of different parts of speech and the elements of sentences. Look back at the suffix section above. What happens when you add the ending -ous to the noun “mischief”? You get “mischievous,” which is an adjective. Suffixes can help you change words from one part of speech to another.

→ TRAVEL THE WORLD—AND THROUGH TIME

With an understanding of etymology, you have the power to travel through time and learn more about different civilizations.

In the next section, you’ll see that the Old English word for “game” was gamen, which comes from a root meaning “people together.” That tells us that the Anglo-Saxons valued their time together, playing games. You’ll also see that the Greeks and Romans valued their gods and mythology and often named things after them, including things like “cereal,” “money,” and “inspiration.”

Learning about etymology is like having a superpower that helps you see through portals to new and old places and cultures.

→ TAKE A JOURNEY IN SOMEONE ELSE’S SHOES

Languages are built through connections. By studying the origins of words, you can see how ideas and words spread throughout the world over time.

Many of our words that relate to sports and physical feats—like “marathon” and “acrobat”—come from the Olympic Games that were originally held in Ancient Greece. These games have spread throughout the world, becoming global traditions that everyone can celebrate.

→ INVENT NEW WORDS—AND INVENT NEW WORLDS

William Shakespeare was a poet and a playwright, and many consider him to be one of the greatest wordsmiths in the English language. He invented hundreds of words using pieces of words from Old English, Latin, and Greek. Sometimes he changed a word’s part of speech, making nouns out of verbs and vice versa. Here are just a few words that Shakespeare is credited with inventing: coldhearted, eventful, swagger, fitful, squander, multitudinous, dwindle, misquote, and uncomfortable.

And Shakespeare isn’t the only one who did this. In the Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling built the names of people and places using etymology: Headmaster Albus Dumbledore’s name is built from Latin and Old English words meaning “white bumblebee,” and the villain Voldemort’s name means “flight of death” in French.

Like these writers, you can build worlds and fill them up with creative characters just by using some etymological magic of your own.

A YEAR OF WORD ORIGINS

The calendar we use today is called the Gregorian calendar. It was named after Pope Gregory XIII, who wanted calendars to be based on the position of the sun throughout the year. The Catholic church often used Roman and Greek words and ideas to build their own rules, and our modern calendar is no exception. Although our months are named after Roman and Greek words and names, their timing is a result of Roman months blending with other calendars. The old Roman calendar, used before 46 BCE, began in March.

The list below shows the origins of the months on your calendar.

In Latin, some months were called “the month of ______.” For example, what we call February was called februarius mensis, or “the month of purification.”

January — from the name of Janus (Ianuarius in Latin), two-faced Roman god of doorways, changes, beginnings, and endings.

February — from the Latin februare, meaning “to purify.” This was the last month of the ancient Roman calendar and was a time for renewal. In Old English, the name for the second month of the year was solmonað, supposedly meaning “mud month.”

March — from the name of Mars, Roman god of war.

April — origin uncertain, but possibly from the name of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, or from a root meaning “the following” or “the next” because it was the second month of the ancient Roman calendar.

May — origin uncertain, but possibly from the name of Maia, a Roman earth goddess.

June — from the name of Juno, Roman goddess of women and marriage. In Old English, it was called liðe se ærra, meaning “earlier mildness.”

July — from the name of the Roman ruler Julius Caesar, who was born in the fifth month of the year, originally called Quintilis, meaning “fifth.” It was renamed after his death, and later shifted to the seventh month.

August — named after the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar.

September — from the Latin septem, meaning “seven,” because it was the seventh month of the Old Roman calendar. Originally named Germanicus after a Roman emperor, but it didn’t stick.

October — from the Latin octo, meaning “eight,” because it was the eighth month of the Old Roman calendar. Originally named Domitian after a Roman emperor, but it didn’t stick either.

November — from the Latin novem, meaning “nine,” because it was the ninth month of the Old Roman calendar. The Old English name for this month was Blotmonað, or “blood month,” because it was a time when animals were sacrificed and stored for food in winter.

December — from the Latin decem, meaning “ten,” because it was the tenth month of the Old Roman calendar.