Apr
6
Paleooology
Filed Under P
Paleooology is my favourite word because it has three “o”s in a row. What’s not to like? Also the idea that there’s a science devoted solely to fossilized eggs is quite pleasing.
James
UK
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7 Responses to “Paleooology”
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If you spell it palaeooology then it must be one of the few (only?) English words with 5 vowels in a row!
i stumble upon this blog.. nice one.. just like my morenewwords.com blog.. but since english is not my language, what i put there are plain stupid simple to the english speakers.
Paleooogy is for eggs huh.. well that’s all 0 0 0 0 eggs..
I’m afraid that I think you’ve got two words mixed up: paleozoology (study of fossils) and paleology (study of antiquities).
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Paleology
you better count them again =)
Quite a fascinating word! Probably one of the few words in English with three consecutive o’s–-or three vowels, for that matter. What makes it even more interesting is it’s one of the handful of words composed of both Greek and Latin roots (”ooo” I believe is from Latin, signifying “egg,” and the common root “logos” comes from Greek, meaning “study of”–-or actually, “to speak of” or “one who deals with”).
I did some research. Apparently, there are at least two more words in the English language with four vowels in a row:
Aiea–a city in Hawaii.
Quaoar–the name of a god of the Native American Tongva people; also, a trans-Neptunian object which rotates the Sun.
Perhaps there are others.
Also, interestingly, the shortest “ology” is “oology,” which means the study of eggs.
Didn’t find this one in Dictionary.com, but there is another with 3 o’s: Paleozooogy, the science of extinct animals, a branch of paleontology.
HOWEVER, here’s an interesting link indicating that Paleooology (or one of its cognates) may be nominated for addition into the Oxford Dictionary. (They say the purist would insist on a hyphen separating the third o from the other two…
)
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Palaeoology/message/164