Saturday, October 20, 2007

philanderer, philanthropist, philatelist, philology and philoprogentive...

philanderer (N): faithless lover; flirt
Philander means a lover and the word can be split as philo + andr man.

Synonyms: Casanova, Lothario, Don jaun, Womanizer.

Philanthropist (N): Lover of mankind; doer of good.
Here philos means beloved, loving and anthropos means man. Thus a person who loves human beings and thus does good things for them is a philanthropist.

Contextual example:
Money does change a lot of things, just after donation of 1 Mn dollars to charity the same media that had derided him initially as being a parsimonious person, painted him as a philanthropist.

The Greek root philos means having a strong affinity and or preference for, loving. This comes from philien, which means to love.

Cognates of anthropos (man): anthropology, anthropomorphic, anthropoid, anthropopathy, anthropophagi, misanthrope.

Philatelist (N): Stamp collector.
This word can be split as philo + ateleia which means, exemption from payment (As postage stamp indicates a prepayment of postage). Here again diving in much deeper “a” means “without” and “telos” means “tax, charge”.

Contextual example:
As he was in arrears the philatelist had to sell of all his stamps to make the ends meet.

Philology (N): Study of language.
The word comes from philogos, which means “fond of talking or learning, studying words”. Philologia means love of learning. Finally this word can be split as Philo + logos which means reason or speech.

Contextual example:
Philology can be a considered as a first step in understanding the cultures.

Cognates of philo: philoprogentive, philosophy, bibliophile, paedophile.

Philoprogentive (Adj): Prolific, loving ones own offspring, Relating to love of children.

His philoprogentive mind was always ready and was put to use whenever there was a need for a creative approach in problem solving.

Regards,
V

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