It's All Geek to Me! Trivia Quiz

Answer: love

"Phil-" is derived from the Greek "philos", one of that language's three words for "love". It can be contrasted with "eros", which is erotic or romantic love, and "agape", which is sacrificial or Christian love. "Philos" can also mean "that which is loved", or in other words, "friend".

Answer: island

Although the Peloponnesus is actually a peninsula connected to the mainland of Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth, the ancient Greeks realized that the land bridge was so small that the peninsula might as well be an island, since it mostly required a ship to get to it. And while there are considerably more than twelve islands in the Dodecanese (if all the tiny ones are included), the Greeks named them after the twelve larger islands, which include Rhodes, Kos, and Patmos.

Answer: law

Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Tanakh/Old Testament, recaps the laws given to Moses by God in the book of Exodus, and thus is the "second (giving of the) law". Astronomy is concerned with determining the laws that govern stars, and by extension, other celestial bodies like planets and moons; this can be contrasted with astrology, which is also concerned with stars, planets, etc., but does not seek to explain the "why" of their movements.

Answer: distance

The Greek "telos" originally meant "end / goal". Because your end or goal is in front of you, either in time or (as in a race) in space, "tele-" was adopted in English to refer to something that functions over a distance.

Answer: writing

The Greek verb "grapho, graphein" (I write, to write) yields the English "-graphy". So calligraphy is literally "beautiful writing" and orthography is "correct writing", that is, spelling.

Answer: life

"Zoe" means "life", as in "life force"; it has a connotation of movement. Thus, in English it is generally used in reference to animals only, not plants, even though plants are also living organisms. The more general term for "life" -- "bios" -- is used to form "biology", which includes botany as well as zoology.

Answer: the self

Autonomy is self-rule, generally used of a territory within a larger political entity. Automobiles were so named because they were "horseless carriages" -- the internal combustion engine meant they did not require the application of any outside force to move them.

Answer: belief

Orthodoxy is the opposite of heresy, which is belief in doctrine not approved by the authorities. The Doxology -- "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow" -- is a communal song sung in many Christian churches after the offering; it is a short encapsulation of several points of the Christian faith: God as the Source of all, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the gratitude due from the created to the Creator.

Answer: house

"Oiko-nomia" began as "law of the house", or in other words, "management of the household". This was then generalized from a single family dwelling to the greater dwelling of the human race, or the world. In the same way, ecology is the study of the world we live in, our "house".

Answer: word

A neologism is the formation of a new word. Most basically, a "logos" is a "word". The Greeks believed that understanding comes when the world is put into words, thought being structured by language. From this belief comes the more extended meaning of "logos" as "reason or understanding", from which we derive the English "logic".

This idea is then further developed to the current English usage of "-ology" as "the study or science of".