Cardiology

How to spell cardiology

10 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce cardiology

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cardiology mean?

1. nounThe branch of medicine concerned with the heart and its diseases.

Cardiology in a sentence

• After years of training, she specialised in cardiology at the city hospital.

• The conference on cardiology drew heart surgeons from across the country.

Where does cardiology come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built entirely from Greek roots. The first part comes from kardia, the Greek word for the heart, the very organ that the same root gives us in 'cardiac' and 'cardiogram'. The ending comes from logia, meaning the study or account of something, derived from logos, which meant 'word', 'reason', or 'discourse'. The connecting -o- that joins the two halves is the standard linking vowel used when Greek elements are combined, which is why the spelling reads cardi-o-logy rather than cardi-logy. The compound was assembled in the nineteenth century as medicine became formally specialised, following the same pattern as biology, geology, and dozens of other -logy sciences. Keeping that middle 'o' clearly in mind is the simplest way to spell the word correctly.

How the word is built

• cardi- (heart, from Greek kardia)
• -o- (connecting vowel)
• -logy (study of, from logos)