Root of the Week for 12/22/25 The root NAT  originates from the Latin word  natus , which means "born." From this root we get many English words having to do with origins, like nativity  and prenatal , and also words having to do with nature  (the origin of us all) and with nations , once conceived as places populated by those born there, that is, “ natives ”.    MONDAY - Native (Noun & Adjective),  Nativity (Noun)   A native  of a place is someone who was born there.  We use

👩‍⚕️🎓📜 Root of the Week for 12/15/25 In Latin, the verb docere  means “to teach.” From the root DOC , we get words like doctor, doctrine, docile and document. MONDAY - Doctor (Noun, Verb),  Doctorate  (Noun) While many of us today mostly use the word doctor to refer to a physician, the word was first used in English to refer to a person who had attained the highest degree available from a university, that is, a doctorate . A doctor was a learned scholar, often in theology

🧑‍🧑‍🧒 Root of the Week for 12/08/25 In Latin, “generare” means “to beget” (give birth to). Therefore, many words containing gen relate to the idea of family— the begetting of people, animals, or things.  And to beget is another way to say “to produce,” so words that contain gen often refer to things that produce something. The Latin root GEN appears in many English words. MONDAY - Gene (noun)   A gene is a unit of hereditary information that passes from parents to offspr

🌬️ From the Latin word spirare,  “to breathe,” and its derivative spriritus,  “breath,” we get many English words containing the root spir. Some of these words have to do with the realm of spirits  and other have to do with breathing ( respiration) , concepts that are closely related.   MONDAY - Spirit (Noun), Spirited (Adjective), Spiritual (Adjective, Noun)   The word spirit ( from spiritus ) has many meanings: the animating essence in living beings, a supernatural being,

🎩👒 In a previous Root of the Week blog post, we looked at English words deriving from the Latin word “capabilis,” meaning “able to,” especially “able to hold” or “able to contain,” and from a related word, “capere,” meaning “to grasp,” “to take in,” or “to comprehend.”  The morpheme CAP  also appears in another group of words derived from “caput,” meaning “head.”  As we will see, a version of “caput” also takes the form of “ceps,” which also means “head.”   MONDAY - Capital

⌛   The Latin word for time is “chronos”, derived from the Greek word “khronos.” English words containing the morpheme “chron” relate in some way to time.   MONDAY - Chronic (adjective) Something is described as “chronic” if it persists over a long period of time.  For some reason, only unpleasant, unwelcome things tend to be called “chronic.”  We don’t tend to say that someone is “chronically kind” or that someone has “chronic good health.”  Instead, we have phenomena like c

🏗️ The Latin root fund means “foundation,” “bottom,” “basis.”   MONDAY   Fundament (Noun), Foundation  (Noun) When you get to the bottom of things, you arrive at the fundament . The noun fundament refers to the physical or conceptual grounds for something, the basis on which it rests. In some archaic or humorous texts, you may see fundament  used to mean “buttocks”—as in “he deserves a good kick in the fundament!” More concretely, a building’s foundation  is its fundament .

🙏 The Latin verb credere means “to believe,” and from credere  we get the root CRED , which forms the base of many English words having to do with belief and believability. MONDAY Credo (Noun),  Creed (Noun) In Latin, CREDO means “I believe.” In English, CREDO  is a noun that refers to a set of fundamental beliefs that guide one’s life.  The noun CREED  means essentially the same thing.  While CREED  is often used to refer to a system of religious beliefs, it can be used to

LAT, Latin   Latin contains many words derived from the root LAT . Lateralus  means “related to the side.” Latitudo means “breadth,...

Root of the Week   DEMOS Greek   The Greek word demos   means “the people,” ”the common people,” or “the populace.”   MONDAY  Demotic...

RootWords app transforms traditional vocabulary study into a fast-paced, engaging game. 

Malapert (Adjective), Maladroit (Adjective), Malapropism  (Noun) A person who behaves in an impertinent manner is malapert . This is...

Malfunction (Noun), Malfeasance (Noun),   Malware (Noun), Malediction  (Noun) Any kind of system can malfunction : our bodies, our...

Malefactor (Noun),   Malice (noun), Malicious (adjective) , Malevolent, (adjective) Malevolence  (Noun) Evil, wicked, spiteful: these...

Malfunction  (Noun),  Malnutrition  (Noun),  Malabsorption  (Noun), Dismal  (Adjective)    Some maladies arise, not from germs or viruses...

Malady (Noun), Malaria (Noun), Malignant (Adjective), Malingerer, (Noun)   A malady  is an ailment or disease. For example, the...

The Latin morpheme MAL, which is usually a prefix in English words,   means bad, ill, or wrong.  MAL  occurs regularly in fiction and...

Prologue, Monologue, Dialogu e  (Noun) Dramas of all kinds, whether on stage or on the screen, involve words (even silent films had...

Philology, Etymology, Lexicology (Noun) There are several -ologies  that relate to language and writing. Philology  (from the Greek phil...

Mythology, Theology. Astrology, Numerology, Demonology  (Noun) The Greek word mythos  means ”speech, “story,” or “saga.”  The word...