-ology, -logy, -ologist, -logist

(Greek: a suffix meaning: to talk, to speak; a branch of knowledge; any science or academic field that ends in -ology which is a variant of -logy; a person who speaks in a certain manner; someone who deals with certain topics or subjects)

The word -ology is a back-formation from the names of certain disciplines. The -logy element basically means "the study of ____". Such words are formed from Greek or Latin roots with the terminal -logy derived from the Greek suffix -λογια (-logia), speaking, from λεγειν (legein), "to speak".

The suffix -ology is considered to be misleading sometimes as when the "o" is actually part of the word stem that receives the -logy ending; such as, bio + logy.

Through the years -ology and -logy have come to mean, "study of" or "science of" and either of these suffixes often utilize the form of -ologist, "one who (whatever the preceding element refers to)".

The examples shown in this unit represent just a small fraction of the many words that exist in various dictionaries.

auxology
azoology (s) (noun) (no pl)
The scientific study of inanimate nature: Jane was surprised to know about azoology as the research about non-living entities in the earth's environment, like rocks or sand.
bacteriologist
bacteriology
bacteriophagology
The study of bacteriophages.
balneologist
1. A specialist or expert in balneology.
2. Someone who practices in the profession of balneotherapy.
balneology
1. The scientific medical study of bathing and medicinal springs.
2. The use of hot spring mineral water for healing or therapeutic purposes.

This is considered to be the oldest historic use of natural geothermal waters.

barologist
A specialist in the study of weight or gravity.
barology
The study of weight or gravity.
batology
The scientific study of brambles usually consisting of prickly shrubs, including raspberries, loganberries, boysenberries, and blackberries.
bibliologist (s) (noun), bibliologists (pl)
A professed student of the scientific description of books, book-lore; bibliography, and biblical literature, doctrine, or theology.
bibliology (s) (noun), bibliologies (pl)
1. A scientific description of books, book-lore; bibliography.
2. The study of the doctrines of the Bible or the study and the doctrines derived from it.
bioanthropology (s) (noun), bioanthropologies (pl)
A branch of study that deals with humans as biological organisms, including areas; such as, primatology, human genetics, human ecology, paleoanthropology, and other fields including identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variations, in fossil hominids, and in various attempts to correlate physical with racial and psychological traits.
bioarchaeology, bioarcheology (s) (noun) (no pl)
1. The use of a range of biological techniques on archaeological material in order to learn more about past populations: Bioarchaeology involves the examination of ailments and deaths of those who were buried in ancient cemetaries.
2. A subdiscipline of biology that integrates the concepts of human biology with those of anthropological archaeology: In bioarchaeology, one might isolate and amplify DNA from very old bones, such as from the frozen body of the 9,000-year-old "Ice Man" who was found in the Italian Alps.

biocenology, biocoenology
1. The branch of biology dealing with the study of biological communities and the interactions among their members.
2. The study of communities of organisms and of the relationship among the members of such communities.
Cross references of word families related directly, or indirectly, to: "talk, speak, speech; words, language; tongue, etc.": cit-; clam-; dic-; fa-; -farious; glosso-; glotto-; lalo-; linguo-; locu-; logo-; loqu-; mythico-; ora-; -phasia; -phemia; phon-; phras-; Quotes: Language,Part 1; Quotes: Language, Part 2; Quotes: Language, Part 3; serm-; tongue; voc-.