Calligraphy, Callisthenic's and Callipygian...

Calligraphy (N): beautiful handwriting.

This word can be broken as "kallos" which means "beauty" and "graphia" which means "writing", the root "graphia" comes from verb root "graphein" which means "to write". So common cognates of the root graphy or graph are graphical, autograph, seismograph, photograph, graphite etc

Callisthenic's (N Pl): gymnastic exercise to achieve fitness and grace of movement.

This word also comes from the same root and can be broken as “kallos” + "sthenos" which means, "strength".

Callipygian (Adj): pertaining to having or having well-shaped buttocks.

This word comes from the statue by name "Venus Kallipygos" or "Callipygian Venus" or "Aphrodite Callipygos" (which means a Greek goddess of love having beautiful buttocks), for more information you can just search by using the name mentioned above. The word can be split as "callos" + "puge" which means, "buttocks".

California (N):

Does the word California comes from the same root? Well the explanation that I found was not much concrete, the name California is believed to come from a island ruled by Queen Califia, this was described in a 16^th century novel named "Las Serges de Esplandian". In this novel a utopian land rich in gold and ruled by Amazons is described.

Regards,
V

Abbreviate, brevity and brief...

Abbreviate (V): shorten (a word, phrase, or text).

This word can be split up as "ad" (as in ad infinitum (without limit)) which means "to" + "breviare" which is verb root, in turn it comes from the Latin root "brevis", which means "short". So abbreviate literally means "to shorten".

Abbreviation (N): a shortened form of a word.

Contextual example:

Acronyms and abbreviations are different; an abbreviation is a shortened form of a word or a phrase for example: "miss" is an abbreviation of "mistress". Whilst acronym is strictly formed from the initial letters of the words, for example LASER (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).

Brevity (N):

• Concise and exact use words.

• Shortness of time.

Contextual example:

The Spartans were known for brevity of speech.

Synonyms: conciseness, curtness, pithiness, succinctness, terseness.

Antonyms: lengthiness, wordiness, long-windedness.

Anchor words:

In order to make the task of remembering this root a tad easy,you can use the word "brief" as an anchor word.

Feedback, cognates, discussion are as always welcome.

Regards,
V

Endorse and dorsal...

Endorse (V): 1) sign, superscribe, autograph. 2) approve, support.

This word can be split up as "in" which here means "on" + "dorsum" which means "back", the word gets its meaning from the practice of adding comments on the back of a document in order to extend or limit its provisions. You might be familiar to this practice, the most common example is: signing on the back of check, in order to show your consent.

Contextual example:
Satyagrihis do not endorse use of violence.

Another cognate of this word is:
Dorsal (adj): having to do with the upper side or back

Contextual example:
A dorsal fin is located on the back of fishes like dolphins, whales etc.

Regards,
V

Stellar, Constellation

The other day I was watching this movie 'Italian job' in which "Charlize Theron" is in as "Stella Bridger", and she is really good at picking locks. This name of hers quite fascinated me as it was sounded quite similar to some of the words that I knew. I would be discussing these words in this post.

Stellar (Adj):

• having to do with stars

• having the quality of a star entertainer or performer, brilliant, outstanding

This word comes from the Latin root "stella" which means "a star", so something that is related to star is stellar

Contextual example:

Her stellar performance at the show was lauded appropriately.

Constellation (N): a group of stars forming a recognized pattern.

This word can be split up as "con" which means "together" and "stella" which means "star", so stars that appear to be together are said to be part of a constellation.

Some examples of constellation are:

Orion, Scorpius, Leo etc.

Regards,
V