-ology, -logy +

(Greek: a suffix: any branch of knowledge; any science or academic field that ends in -ology which is a variant of -logy; one who speaks (in a certain manner); one who deals (with a certain topic); talk, speak)

The word -ology is a back-formation from the names of certain disciplines. The -logy element basically means "the study of ____". Such words are formed from Greek or Latin roots with the terminal -logy derived from the Greek suffix -λογια (-logia), speaking, from λεγειν (legein), "to speak". The suffix -ology is considered to be misleading as the "o" is actually part of the word stem that receives the -logy ending; such as, bio + logy.

Through the years -ology and -logy have come to mean, "study of" or "science of" and either of these suffixes often utilize the form of -ologist, "one who (whatever the preceding element refers to)".

The examples shown in this unit represent just a small fraction of the many words that exist in other units in this lexicon.

1. The study of religion, especially the Christian faith and God’s relation to the world.
2. A religious theory, school of thought, or system of belief.
3. A course of specialized religious training, especially one intended to lead students to a vocation in the Christian Church.
4. A system of religious knowledge or beliefs.

Two men are studying the Bible and other books related to God and various religious beliefs.

—Word Info image © Copyright, 2006.

1. The study of flags.
2. The scientific study of the history, symbolism, and usage of flags or, by extension, any general listing of flags.
3. Etymology: from Latin vexillum, a term used by the Romans to refer to a kind of standard with a fabric hung from a horizontal crossbar on a pole. It is the closest equivalent in the classical languages to what we call a flag today.

In his book, Dr. Smith says, "While the use of flags goes back to the earliest days of human civilization, the study of that usage in a serious fashion is so recent that the term for it (vexillology, coined by the author of this book) did not appear in print until 1959. This has resulted in a lack of uniformity in flag terms and, worse still, a lack of source material concerning actual usage on which standardization might be based." (page 12).

—Dr. Whitney Smith, compiler of the book, Flags through the Ages and Across the World, McGraw-Hill Book Company (UK), 1975.

Cross references of word families related directly, or indirectly, to: "talk, speak, speech; words, language; tongue, etc.": cit-; clam-; dic-; English Words: Origins and Histories; fa-; -farious; glosso-; glotto-; lalo-; linguo-; locu-; logo-; loqu-; mythico-; ora-; -phasia; -phemia; phon-; phras-; Quotes: Language,Part 1; Quotes: Language, Part 2; Quotes: Language, Part 3; serm-; tongue; voc-.