Theology

How to spell theology

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce theology

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does theology mean?

1. nounThe systematic study of God, religious belief, and the nature of the divine.

Theology in a sentence

• She enrolled in a theology course at the local seminary.

• The debate between the two scholars turned on a fine point of theology.

Where does theology come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek theologia, which combined theos, meaning 'god', with logos, meaning 'word', 'reason', or 'account', so that the whole literally described 'discourse about God' or 'reasoned talk of the divine'. Among the ancient Greeks the term first referred to writing about the myths of the gods, but early Christian writers reshaped it into the systematic study of God and religious belief. The word travelled into Latin as theologia and then into English through Old French theologie during the 1300s, settling into its modern academic sense. The same theos root survives in everyday relatives such as 'atheist' (literally 'without god') and 'monotheism', while the -logy ending links it to a huge family of study words like 'biology' and 'geology'. The spelling trap lies in that quiet middle, the unstressed 'o' in 'the-OL-o-gy', and in remembering the silent 'h' after the opening 't'.

How the word is built

• theo- (from Greek theos: god)
• -logy (from Greek logia: study, discourse)