Etymo

orthography

The conventions of spelling and writing a language.

Played on · Day 15 · word 3 of 5

Writing correctly.

How orthography reached English

oldest first

Simplified path. The puzzle showed the main steps; the full route is being checked.

Greek

  • orthos‘correct / straight’
  • graphein‘to write’

combined

  1. English

    orthography

    ‘The conventions of spelling and writing a language.’

The story of orthography

Orthography uses Greek components for straight or correct and writing. Latin and French forms transmitted it into English. What sounds like a technical label is a compact description of conventional spelling.

This view explains the components. They are pieces of one construction, not consecutive borrowing stages.

Sources

Related

Orth- can carry the idea of straightness as well as correctness.

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