Grammarbites part 9 – Latin, Greek, French, Norse and English words

Part 1 – introduction

Part 8 – Building words, prefixes and suffixes

Part 9 – Latin, Greek, French, Norse and English words

Part 6 – sentence types

Part 5 – nouns

Part 2 – auxiliary and modal verbs

Part 3 – regular and irregular main verbs

Part 7 – pronunciation – the basic sounds of English

Part 4 – pronunciation – consonant clusters

The word manage might look like it is made up of man and age, but it isn’t – the meaning of manage has nothing to do with the meanings of those two words. Instead, it is related to the Latin word manus, meaning hand. Other English words with similar meanings are maintain, manifest, maneouvre, manner, manual, manipulate, manuscript, manufacture, manure, manicure.

Similarly, the Latin word for foot is pes/pedis, from which we get words with meanings related to feet or travel: biped, expedition, impede, pedal, pawn, pedestrian, pedestal, pedigree, pioneer, pedicure.

At the same time, the Greek word for foot is podós, from which we get the very similar words podiatry, podium and tripod, and the word for hand is kheír, from which we get chiropractic/chiropractor.

Many English words are built on a root taken from Latin or Greek, sometimes a whole word, but often just part of it. Sometimes the connection and meaning is clear, other times people know only by looking in dictionaries or on the internet. Sometimes the Latin and Greek roots are very similar (pes/pedis and podós) and sometimes they are very different (manus and kheír).

But not all man– words are related to hands, or ped-/pod– words to feet. Some man– words are related to Latin manēre, meaning stay (permanent, remain), or Greek mania, meaning crazy (manic, maniac), and some ped– words are related to Greek paîs, paidós, meaning child (p(a)ediatric, pedagogue, pedant).

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