neurology
nyoo-ROL-oh-jee
Medical/scientific discipline term
the scientific study of the nervous system
Literally: the study of nerves
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| neur- | a nerve, sinew, cord | Greek (neur, =a, -o) | combining form neuro-; the -o- is the standard Greek connecting vowel |
| -o- | connecting vowel | standard Greek combining vowel joining the two roots | |
| -logy | a word, discourse; the study or science of | Greek (log, -o, =us, =y / -ology) | suffix -ology conventionally means 'the science of'; head element of the compound |
A pure Greek compound: neuro- (modifier, 'nerve') + -o- (connecting vowel) + -logy (head, 'science of'). The combining form neuro- specifies the subject matter of the discipline named by -logy. There is no Latin element; the word is entirely Greek in formation.
Pronunciation
- nyoo-ROL-oh-jee Antepenult rule: the penult vowel (-o-) is short and followed by only one consonant (g), so stress retreats to the antepenult (-rol-).
Commonly: In American English the initial syllable is often noo-ROL-oh-jee (without the y-glide).
Other readings
No alternative segmentations are linguistically plausible; the neuro- / -logy split is unambiguous.
Neurology is not a biological binomial but is formed by the same classical compounding conventions and is fully analyzable by the same method. The suffix -ology is listed independently in the dictionary (id 4290) as well as through its root log- (id 3445), confirming the double dictionary attestation. OCR or scanning artefacts were not encountered for these entries.