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No ancient Greek or Roman would have used a word like "carbohydrate," even if they wanted to lose weight. Carbo is Latin, while hydrate is Greek.

I believe astronaut, automobile, and horticulture are also examples.

Perhaps the membership can help identify additional hybrids (having roots in two or more languages).

RJA
 
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<wordnerd>
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Fascinating question, Robert, but for me it's a difficult one that gives me a headache, since it's not a way I categorize words as I come across them. Aspirin, perhaps?
 
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Picture of Kalleh
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I agree that it is a fascinating question, and I tried looking for hybrid words. I have searched in Google, on Wordcraft and some other word sites, but so far haven't found much. Now, interestingly, yesterday when I posted about homographs, the definition said that they have the same spelling, but different meanings and origins. Now, they aren't hybrids, but Tinman posted a list of them awhile ago.

I am going to continue to look, though, for the "hybrid" part!
 
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Horticulture, I think that a Roman could figure that one out: the cultura hortorum, or some such. Hortus is Latin garden and cultura is the 'caring for, tilling of'. Anywho, homosexual is one of these Greco-Latin hybrids. Not so sure about astronaut. Latin nauta is a loanword from the Greek nautes. Latin has very few compound words, e.g., paterfamilias, but Greek, like its cousin Sanskrit, has many.
 
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television

monoplane, monolingual -- and the spurious mono/bi distinction has become established by analogy
 
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Picture of Graham Nice
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quote:
Originally posted by aput:
television
the spurious mono/bi distinction


Tell us more...
 
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Picture of BobHale
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Television ? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it !

C.P.Scott (attrib.)


Every silver lining has a cloud.
Read all about my travels around the world here.
Read even more of my travel writing and poems on my weblog.
 
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