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-logy

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"An ology. He gets an ology and he says he's failed. You get an ology, you're a scientist!"
Beattie, played by Maureen Lipman in a 1987 British Telecom television advert
"Right, here we go now- A sociology lecture; A bit of psychology, A bit of neurology, A bit of fuckology..."
John Lydon, introduction to No Fun by The Sex Pistols.

Informally, an ology is a field of study or academic discipline ending in the suffix -ology. The word ology is therefore a back-formation from the names of these disciplines. Such words are formed from Greek or Latin roots with the terminal -ology derived from the Greek suffix -ολογια (-ologia), speaking, from λεγειν (legein), to speak.

Not all words ending in -ology are ologies in the above sense. In some words such as tautology and haplology, the -logy suffix is from the Greek λογοσ, word, and denotes not a field of study but a type of speech or writing. For example, haplology means the mistake of saying one letter, syllable or word when two or more are required, as in the example of pronouncing the word "February" somewhat like "Febuary".

  • Trilogy (although not strictly an -ology) is a body of writing in three parts, as tetralogy is that in four parts.
  • Hagiology is literature dealing with the life of a saint or, indeed, any revered person, a biography of an individual, rather than a study of saints, sainthood or saintliness in general.
  • Chronology is the arrangement or setting out of past events in order of occurrence; the recording of historical events in date sequence.
  • phraseology is the way words are put together, therefore the style being used in a sentence, or the set of phrases or the choice of words used by any particular group of people, a type of register, then, that reflects the form of language used in a certain social situation in which particular subjects are being discussed. Examples of register (phraseology) are: (obscene) slang, legal language (legalese), journalese, the jargon of the racecourse, or the special words or phrases used in certain occupations, as only a few of a very numerous category.


Here is a list of some ologies:

please add more examples of real fields of study ending with -ology to this list

See also:

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