Prefixes
This Greek prefix means "good, well"
eu-, ev-
A Greek base meaning “skill”
TECHN-
This Greek goddess of retribution gives us our word meaning “long standing rival”
Nemesis
This is the plural of octopus
octopodes, octopuses
This is the name for when a word changes its meaning
Semantic change
This Greek prefix means “through, across, between”
dia-, di-
A Greek base meaning “opinion, teaching”
These harsh and sever laws were originally created by an Athenian lawgiver
Draconian
In the year 1066, these people invaded England
Normans; Norman French
A specific type of apheresis, this is the word for the linguistic phenomenon of the first unstressed vowel being lost from a word
This Latin prefix means “backward, behind”
A Greek base meaning “all”
PAN(T)-
This word meaning “one who sarcastically doubts human motives” comes from a Greek philosophical school that derives its name from the word meaning “dog"
Cynic
This was the original name given to the Proto-Indo European language family
Aryan
The etymological meaning of this linguistic phenomenon is “word making” or “name making”
Onomatopoeia
This Latin prefix means “around”
circum-
A Latin base meaning “to disturb; movement”
TURB-
The word “ostracism” meaning “exclusion from society” comes from the Greek word ostrakon meaning
pot shard; broken piece of pottery
During the Renaissance, overly pedantic words coming from Greek and Latin roots were called this
inkhorn words
The surname Johnson is considered this
Patronymic
This Greek prefix means “with, together”
syn-, sym-, syl-, sy-
A Latin base meaning “root”
RADIC-, RADIX-
This word meaning “clever but deceptive argumentation meant to mislead” comes from the philosophical movement in Athens that gave instruction especially in rhetoric, grammar, logic
sophistry
What gradual shift marks the boundary between Middle English and Early Modern English
The Great Vowel Shift
This is the word for when one of two identical sounds in a word changes in order to be less identical
Dissimilation