UMBR come from the Latin umbra, meaning "shadow." Thus, the familiar umbrella, with its ending meaning "little," casts a "little shadow" to keep off the sun or the rain.

VEST comes from the Latin verb vestire, "to clothe" or "to dress," and the noun vestis, "clothing" or "garment." Vest is the shortest English word we have from this root, and is the name of a rather small piece of clothing.

THE/THEO comes from the Greek word meaning "god." Theology, the study of religion, is practiced by theologians. Monothesim is the worship of a single god; Christianity, Islam, and Judaism are monotheistic religions, and all three worship the same god. Polytheistic religions such as those of ancient Greek and Rome, on other hand, worship many gods.

ICON comes from the Greek eikon, which led to the Latin icon, both meaning "image." Though the icon- root hasn't produced many English words, the words that is does appear in tend to be interesting.

URB comes from the Latin noun for "city." Our word urban describes cities and the people who live in them. With its sub- prefix (SEE SUB), a suburb is a town "near" or "under" a larger city, and suburban houses are home to suburbanites.

CULT comes from the Latin cultus, meaning "care," So cultivation is care of something, such as a garden, in a way that encourages its growth. And culture is what is produced by cultivating human knowledge, skills, beliefs, manners, science, and art over many years.

DEM/DEMO comes from the Greek word meaning "people." "Government by the people" was invented by the ancient Greeks, so it's appropriate that they were the first to come up with a word for it: demokratia, or democracy.

POPUL comes from the Latin word meaning "people," and in fact forms the basis of the word people itself. So the population is the people of an area, and popular means not only "liked by many people" but also (as in popular culture) "relating to the general public."

Animal Word