Classics 22: Etymology

• Prefixes are combining forms that occur exclusively before stems or other prefixes.
• A word may have more than one prefix: 
• an-ec-dote ("not-out-given"): an anecdote is a story in English, of course. an- "not" and ec- "out"are both prefixes
  
• syn-ec-doche: ("together-from-received"). A synecdoche is where a part stands for the whole: "fifty sail" for "fifty ships" or "get your butt over here."
  
• A prefix may wind up inside a word as the result of compounding: Ap-pend-ec-tom-y.
  
• Occasionally, by a sort of back-formation or shortening, a prefix may come to be a word on its own:
• hyper, from hyperactive.
• hypo from hypodermic
• retro  from retroactif (French, but retro- is Latin)
  
• Adjectival stems are also typically found before noun stems, but are not considered prefixes, because they also occur frequently on their own. See lesson 8.
  
• Certain prefixes have more than one form, which is for the sake of euphony ('sounding right'). In the table below you will observe the following:
  
• Some add a consonant if a vowel follows:
  
• a- "not, without" is usually an- before vowels, as in anecdote.
  
• ec- is usually ex- before vowels, as in exophthalmic
  
• Some assimilate to a consonant at the beginning of the following stem.
• en-, em-, el-  as in enema, emblem, and ellipse
  
• syn-, syl-, sym-, sy- as in synergy, syllogism, symphony, and system
  
• Some prefixes elide a vowel before stems beginning with vowels or h (called "elision"): ana- + hodos > anode.
  
• In Greek, the vowel at the end of the prefix usually elides.
  
• ana-, anti-, apo-, cata-, dia-, ecto-, exo-, endo-, ento-, epi-, hypo-, meta-, and para- usually elide.
• Compare English "I'm" < "I am" and "you're" < "you are": the norm in English is to elide the following vowel rather than the preceding vowel.
  
• amphi-, peri-, and pro- never elide.
  
• The following table has a common meaning of each prefix, which is rarely the only meaning.
• Some Greek words containing prefixes entered English with those prefixes already prefixed in Greek itself. In such cases it is often impossible to figure out what the prefix "means" even though it is clear what the prefix (and stem) is. That is because in Greek, the prefixes often have several meanings, many of which are not active in English, but English uses them with only a restricted set of those meanings.
  
• Consider ellipse (en "in" + leip- "leave" + -sis "the action of"), which is from the Greek verb elleipein "to fall short, fail". There is no verifiable historical reconstruction of why en- "in" affixed to leipein "to leave" means "to fall short, fail." We do, however, know how the word ellipse came from elleipein "to fall short" (it has to do with the way you construct an ellipse by cutting a cone: the plane that creates an ellipse falls short of the slope of the cone's side). Thus there is no explanation that is informative for English speakers as to why en "in" was prefixed to elleipein in Greek.
  

• 1. Why have certain parts of the Earth been called "Arctic," "Antarctic," "Tropics," "Antipodes," and "Zones"? Use the OED and MWonline.
  

• 2. Find the prefixes and their meanings in the following (look up words you don't know and find their English meaning too). Use them to help fill in the table above.
  

• anemia	dysphasia	evangelist	symbol
  anesthesia	dysphagia	eugenics	syllabic
  anatomy	eccentric	hyperbole	systole
  amphitheater	appendectomy	hyphen	telescope
  anachronism	exophthalmic	hypothesis	metempsychosis
  analysis	ectoplasm	metathesis	anecdote
  antagonist	exogamy	palinode
  apostle	endemic	palimpsest
  aphelion	ellipse	paragraph
  catechism	endothermic	periscope
  catalytic	entophyte	proscenium
  diameter	epiglottis	prosthetic
  diagnosis	eponymous	synthesis

  
  

• 3. Find the etymology and meanings of the following. Try to predict their meanings as you go along (but be sure to look them up to confirm your predictions): 

1. amphidromic, catadromous, anadromous, catanadromous, diadromous, antidromal, syndrome, palindrome, paradromic, and prodromal.
2. diadermal, ectoderm, endermic, endoderm, enepidermic, entomesoderm, epidermal, exoderm, hypodermic, intradermal, mesectoderm, periderm, and transdermal.
3. anode, aphodus, cathode, diodia, episode, esodic, exodus, Evodius, method, period, parodos, prosodion, and synod.
   

• 4. Find the prefixes in the following list: be careful, not every word has a prefix and not every prefix is obvious.

• anthem	emblem	catamount	metallurgy
  economics	Apollo	Episcopal	neurectomy
  Diana	epic	eclogue	anodyne
  parasite	anteater	syllabus	peripteral
  category	method	protozoa	amphiprostyle
  epenthesis	parotid	atom	apostle

• 5. Construct the English word whose etymological elements mean: use combing forms such as phon-, graph/gram, streph/stroph, phyt, cardi, and gno.
  

• act of knowing before
  thing around the heart
  voices together (abstract noun)
  plant (growing) upon
  far writer
  a turning away
  a feeling against
  a lack of feeling
  a writing upon
  a writing back
  writing badly

  
  

• 6. Find the prefixes and their meanings in the following:

• anacoluthon	aneuric	anaphora	anaerobic
  anthology	anarchy	aneroid	anemone
  athletic	anathema	anion	epanorthosis

• 7. Compare the etymologies of embolism and emblem as well as parable and parabola and beloid and bolide. Look in particular at the vowels in their roots: what's the difference?

• 8. Match the words in column A with their etymological meaning in column B:

• A	B
  On a day Living on both sides Given against Difficulty cooking Marriage within Upon the people Sprouting well Excessive growth Change of name Act of being born again Throw beside A carrying around A throwing forth Addition to a song Throwing up Yoking together Movement far off	Antidote  Epidemic  Hypertrophy  Metonymy  Telekinesis  Problem  Anabolic  Dyspepsia  Ephemeral  Evernia  Syzygy  Prosody  Periphery  Parable  Endogamy  Palingenesis  Amphibian