Anthology

How to spell anthology

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce anthology

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anthology mean?

1. nounA published collection of poems, stories, or other writings chosen from various sources.

Anthology in a sentence

• The publisher released a new anthology of modern short fiction.

• Her poem was selected for an anthology of contemporary verse.

Where does anthology come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the Greek anthologia, which literally meant 'a gathering of flowers'. It was built from anthos, meaning 'flower', and a form of the verb legein, meaning 'to gather' or 'to collect', the same root that gives us the familiar ending -logy. The Greeks used the image of plucking the choicest blooms as a metaphor for selecting the finest short poems and arranging them in a single collection. The term passed through Latin as anthologia and reached English in the seventeenth century, at first specifically for compilations of verse before broadening to any curated collection of writings, stories, or even music. Remembering that hidden 'flower' (anth) helps explain the 'th' in the middle, a spot where writers sometimes drop the letter.

How the word is built

• anth- (from Greek anthos: flower)
• -o- (connecting vowel)
• -logy (from legein: to gather, a collection)