Terminology

How to spell terminology

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce terminology

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does terminology mean?

1. nounThe body of specialised words and expressions used in a particular subject, trade, or profession.

Terminology in a sentence

• The contract was dense with legal terminology that few clients understood.

• New staff spend their first week learning the company's internal terminology.

Where does terminology come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word brings together two ancient threads. The first half rests on the Latin terminus, which literally meant a 'boundary, limit, or end', and which the Romans even personified as a god of property markers. The second half comes from the Greek logia, meaning 'study, account, or system of words', the same element that ends countless words such as biology and psychology. The compound itself was not classical but modern: it was coined in German as Terminologie in the late eighteenth century to describe the special set of technical 'terms' belonging to a field, and English adopted it around 1800. The sense flowed naturally from the older word 'term', since a technical term is precisely a fixed expression with a settled boundary of meaning. Remembering that 'term' sits at the front, followed by the familiar '-ology' study ending, makes the spelling much steadier than it first looks.

How the word is built

• termin- (from Latin terminus: boundary, limit)
• -o- (linking vowel)
• -logy (from Greek logia: study or system of)