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This list of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names is intended to help those unfamiliar with classical languages to understand and remember the scientific names of organisms. The binomial nomenclature used for animals and plants is largely derived from Latin and Greek words, as are some of the names used for higher taxa , such ...
Frequently used to indicate maternal roles, this word should not be construed as translating directly to "mother" (Latin māter; Ancient Greek μήτηρ mḗtēr); aside from being a proper name, in Ancient Greek "maîa" can translate to "midwife" or "foster mother" and was used as an honorific address for older women, typically translated ...
Word or root Scientific meaning from Latin Example Latin word Latin meaning Scientific meaning from Greek Example Greek word Greek meaning Notes alg- alga: alga alga: seaweed: pain: analgesic: ἄλγος: pain crema- burn: cremation: cremāre: to burn hang, be suspended cremaster: κρεμάννυμι: I hang (tr.)
This is a list of terms and symbols used in scientific names for organisms, and in describing the names. For proper parts of the names themselves, see List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names. Note that many of the abbreviations are used with or without a stop.
Latin was once the universal academic language in Europe. From the 18th century, authors started using their mother tongues to write books, papers or proceedings. Even when Latin fell out of use, many Latin abbreviations continued to be used due to their precise simplicity and Latin's status as a learned language. [citation needed]
Many letters of the Latin alphabet, both capital and small, are used in mathematics, science, and engineering to denote by convention specific or abstracted constants, variables of a certain type, units, multipliers, or physical entities. Certain letters, when combined with special formatting, take on special meaning.
The gradual disuse of Latin opened an uneasy transition period as more and more works were only accessible in local languages. Many national European languages held the potential to become a language of science within a specific research field: some scholars "took measures to learn Swedish so they could follow the work of [the Swedish chemist] Bergman and his compatriots."
Firstly, languages such as Greek, Latin and Arabic – either directly or via more recently derived languages such as French – have provided not only most of the technical terms used in Western science, but also a de facto vocabulary of roots, prefixes and suffixes for the construction of new terms as required.