Economics

How to spell economics

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce economics

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does economics mean?

1. nounThe study of how money, goods, and resources are produced, distributed, and consumed.

Economics in a sentence

• She studied economics at university before working in finance.

• The rising cost of fuel made the economics of the trip far less attractive.

Where does economics come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek oikonomia, which literally meant 'household management', built from oikos meaning 'house' and the verb nemein meaning 'to manage' or 'to distribute'. To the ancient Greeks the term covered the practical running of a family estate: budgeting, provisioning, and the orderly handling of resources. It passed through Latin as oeconomia and into French and English in the 1500s and 1600s, still carrying that sense of careful management. By the eighteenth century, as thinkers began studying wealth on a national scale, 'political economy' gave way to the modern study of production and trade, and the plural form ending in '-ics' (matching fields like physics and mathematics) settled into place. Knowing that the 'eco' part means 'house' rather than 'ecology' helps fix the single 'c' and the 'o', and the same oikos root also gives us 'ecology' and 'ecosystem'.

How the word is built

• eco- (from Greek oikos: household)
• nom (from nemein: to manage)
• -ics (study or field)