VIS comes from a Latin verb meaning "see." Vision is what enables us to see, visual images are visable to our eyes, and a visitor is someone who comes to see something. The same verb actually gives us another root, vid-, as in Julius Caesar's famous statement about his military exploits, "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered"), and such common English words as video.

SPECT comes from the Latin verb specere, meaning "to look at," and produces several familiar English words. Spectacles can be glasses that you look through; but a spectacle can also be a remarkable sight--in Roman times, perhaps a spectacular chariot race or a spectacularly bloody battle between gladiators and wild beasts, mounted for the pleasure of its spectators.

VOC come from the Latin words meaning "voice" and "speak." So, a vocal ensemble is a signing group. A vocation was originally a "calling" from God to do religous work as a priest, monk, or nun, though today most people use the word just to mean a career. And a vocabulary is a set of words for sepaking.

PHON is a Greek root meaning "sound," "voice," or "speech." It's probably most familiar in the form of the English suffix -phone, in words that begin with a Greek or Latin root as well. Thus, the tel- in telephone means "far," the micro- in microphone means "small," the xylo- in xylophone means "wood," and so on.

CUR from the Latin verb curare, means basically "care for." Our verb cure comes from this root, as do manicure ("care for the hands") and pedicure ("care for the feet").

PERI in both Latin and Greek, means "around." A period is often a span of time that keeps coming around regularly, day after day or year after year. With a periscope, you can see around corners. Peristalsis is the process that moves food around the intestines; without it, digestion would grind to a halt.

SENS comes from the Latin noun sensus, meaning "feeling" or "sense." Sense itself obviously comes straight from the Latin. A sensation is something you sense. And if you're sensitive, you feel or sense things sharply, maybe even too sharply.

SOPH comes from the Greek words meaning "wise" and "wisdom." In English the root sometimes appears in words where the wisdom is of the "wise guy" variety, but in words such as philosophy we see it used more respectfully.

Words from Mythology and History