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-ography

Suffixes
-cide
-cycle
-cracy
-ic
-ism
-ist
-ography
-oid
-ology
-omics
-onomy
-onym
-philia
-phobia
-scope
-stan
-ware


Informally, an ography is a field of study or academic discipline ending in the noun combining form -ography. The word ography is therefore a back-formation from the names of these disciplines. Such words are formed from Greek or Latin roots with the combining form -graphy derived from the Greek verb γραφειν (graphein), "to write", plus the abstract noun suffix -ia in Greek, which became Latin, and then French, before becoming English -y. The word ography is thus misleading, as the <o> is actually part of the Greek root that receives the -graphy ending. For example, the bio- root of biography stems from Greek βιος (bios), life. This is why some of the words listed below do not end in -ography (such as calligraphy).

Some non-study ographies are the following:

  • Autobiography, the biography of a person written by that person
  • Bibliography, a list of writings used or considered by an author in preparing a particular work
  • Biography, an account of a person's life
  • Calligraphy, the art of fine handwriting
  • Choreography, the art of creating and arranging dances or ballets
  • Cryptography, the art of hiding the content of information
  • Floriography, the language of flowers
  • Orthography, rules of correct writing
  • Photography, the art, practice, or occupation of taking and printing photographs
  • Steganography, the art of writing hidden messages
  • Stenography, the art of writing in shorthand
  • Tasseography , the art of reading tea leaves

Some study-related ographies are the following:

  • Areography, the study of the physical features of the planet Mars
  • Cartography, the study and making of maps
  • Demography, the study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics
  • Geography, the study of spatial relationships on the Earth's surface
  • Hagiography, the study of saints
  • Historiography, the study of the study of history
  • Oceanography, the exploration and scientific study of the ocean and its phenomena
  • Orography, the science and study of mountains


Last updated: 10-24-2004 05:10:45