NOM comes from the Latin word for "name." A nominee is a person "named"--or nominated--to run for or serve in office. A binomial ("two names") is the scientific name for a species: Felis catus for the house cat, for example. A polynomial, with "many names," is an algebra expression involving several terms: 2x^2 + 9y - z^3, for instance.

PATER/PATR comes from both the Greek and the Latin word for "father." So a patron, for example, is someone who assumes a fatherly role toward an institution or project or individual, giving moral and financial support.

LEGA comes from the Latin legare, meaning "to appoint" or "to send as a deputy." The same root actually shows up in such words as legal--but how the law connects with sending deputies can get awfully complicated and probably isn't worth going into.

GREG comes from the Latin grex, "herd" or "flock." Bees, starlings, cows--any creatures that like to live together in flocks or herds--are called gregarious, and the same word is used for people who enjoy companionship and are happiest when they're in the middle of a rowdy herd.

FLU comes from the Latin verb fluere, "to flow." So a flume is a narrow gorge with a stream flowing through it. A fluent speaker is one from whom words flows easily. Influence originally referred to an invisible fluid that was believed to flow from the stars and to affect the actions of humans. A mysterious outbreak of disease in 15th-century Italy led Italians to blame it on the stars' influenza--and the name stuck.

PREHEND/PREHENS comes from the Latin verb prehendere, "to seize." Most of the English words where it appears are closely related to the ones discussed below.

TEMPER comes from the Latin verb temperare, "to moderate or keep within limits" or "to mix." Most of the world's people live in the temperate zone--that is, the zone where the temperature is moderate, between the hot tropics and the icy Arctic and Antarctic Circles. It's less easy to see how we get temperature from this root; the word actually used to refer to the mixing of differnet basic elements in the body, and only slowly came to mean how hot or cold that body was.

PURG comes from the Latin verb purgare, "to clean or cleanse." Almost all the English words where it shows up are closely to those related below.

Number Words

MILL means either "a thousand" or "a thousandth." A millennium is a thousand years, and a million is a thousand thousands. But a milligram is a thousandth of a gram, a milliliter a thousandth of a liter, and a millimeter a thousandth of a meter.

HEMI/SEMI means "half." Hemi- comes from Greek, semi- from Latin. A hemisphere is half a sphere, and a semicircle is half a circle. (The French prefix demi-, which probably developed from Latin as well, also means "half"--as in demitasse, a little after-dinner coffee cup half the size of a regular cup.)