Methodologies

How to spell methodologies

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce methodologies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does methodologies mean?

1. nounSets of methods, principles, or systematic procedures used within particular fields or projects.

Methodologies in a sentence

• The report compared two research methodologies for measuring customer satisfaction.

• Different teaching methodologies suit different kinds of learners.

Where does methodologies come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek methodos, which literally meant 'a following after' or 'a pursuit', built from meta (after, in pursuit of) and hodos (a way or road); the original sense was the path you take toward knowledge. Greek then supplied the combining form -logia, meaning 'the study or science of', which English attaches to countless words such as biology and psychology. The two ideas were joined in the Latinised methodologia and reached English through French and scholarly Latin in the early 1800s, naming the study of methods or the system of methods used in a field. The singular 'methodology' was originally a fairly technical term for the philosophy of method, but it has broadened to mean simply a set of working procedures. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle vowels (meth-od-OL-o-gy) and the double 'o' inside '-ology', which the plural '-ies' ending then caps off.

How the word is built

• method (from Greek methodos: pursuit of knowledge, way of inquiry)
• -ology (from logia: study of)
• -es (plural)