# Words made up of two languages **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 17, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708 "2008-03-17T22:00:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/41 "2014-10-16T13:35:19Z")
Megaton derives from the Greek megas and the Old English tun. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/42 "2014-10-16T14:02:37Z")
Apparatchik (Latin-Russian) Neoconservative (Greek-Latin) Superhero (Latin-Greek) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/43 "2014-10-16T15:15:35Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I find it interesting to note that the ancient prohibition against mixing languages in compound words is extinct. It’s rare to find a nonsensical affectation abandoned by even the most priggish of the illiterate pedants. As a priggish pedant myself, I resent that insinuation: _I_ certainly haven’t abandoned the ancient prohibition against mixing languages to form hybrid words! 😛 Although I don’t have a problem with hybrid compounds that are entrenched in the language already, it does grate on me when it occurs in newly-formed words. In fact, I may already be on record around here somewhere as complaining about the term “monokini” designating the bottom half of a bikini bathing suit sold separately from the top. Not only is it a hybrid of the Greek prefix “mono-” and the Austronesian name “bikini”, but it’s a play on the _Latin_ prefix “bi-” replaced by “mono-” to denote “one” instead of “two”. Obviously, the word really ought to be “unikini”! ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/44 "2014-10-16T15:21:14Z")
> [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](#): > > This isn’t English, but I think it’s neat: > > In Hungarian, the word ‘pályaudvar’ means ‘train station.’ > > ‘pálya’ is of Italian origin (‘pista’), and means ‘track’ > ‘udvar’ comes from Slavic and means ‘courtyard’ Zombie from 2008; but I’m finding it hard to resist responding, that in Hungary the “p-word” above, is often abbreviated in a maps / timetables context, to “pu.” – comparable to our similar abbreviative practice, re railway stations, of using. “Sta.”. One of Budapest’s main rail terminals is the Nyugati station; in abbreviated form, “Nyugati pu.” – which, looking rather rude, always appeals to my inner eight-year-old. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/45 "2014-10-16T15:24:42Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > The first one I can think of is “octopi”, the plural of octopus. Apparently, it’s an incorrect plural, because “octopus” comes from Greek, not Latin, and “-us” to “i” plurals is a Latin thing. So “octopi” is a Green word with a Latin ending. > > The correct plural is apparently “octopodes”. Who knew? Many Latin words ending in “-us” don’t go to “-i” in the plural. That’s specifically a second decliension thing (Latin has five noun classes, or ‘declensions’). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/46 "2014-10-16T15:26:39Z")
“Trusteeship” apparently is made up from Old English “trust”, the French ending “-ee”, and Scandinavian “-ship”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/47 "2014-10-16T15:55:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Many Latin words ending in “-us” don’t go to “-i” in the plural. That’s specifically a second decliension thing (Latin has five noun classes, or ‘declensions’). True, but first and second declension are by a good margin the most common, and fourth and fifth declension are quite rare. The vast majority of Latin nouns ending in -us are, in fact, second declension (though fourth also ends in -us, and third can end in pretty much anything). ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2014, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/48 "2014-10-16T19:04:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > True, but first and second declension are by a good margin the most common, and fourth and fifth declension are quite rare. The vast majority of Latin nouns ending in -us are, in fact, second declension (though fourth also ends in -us, and third can end in pretty much anything). Isn’t the third declension the largest? > **[Latin declension](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Third_declension_.28i.29)** > > Latin declension is the set of patterns according to which Latin words are declined—that is, have their endings altered to show grammatical case, number and gender. Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives are declined (verbs are conjugated), and a given pattern is called a declension. There are five declensions, which are numbered and grouped by ending and grammatical gender. Each noun follows one of the five declensions, but some irregular nouns have exceptions. > Adjectives are of two kinds: those like ... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/49 "2014-10-17T02:10:34Z")
I think that the third declension is the largest, but that the first and second declensions are more common. This is partly because third declension contains all genders while first and second split the genders between them, and partly because the words in the first and second declensions tend to be more common than the words in the third declension. That said, my study of Latin is many years past, so if any classics scholars can correct me on that, I count myself preemptively corrected. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/50 "2014-10-17T04:08:41Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Apparatchik (Latin-Russian) > Neoconservative (Greek-Latin) > Superhero (Latin-Greek) Also: Hyperactive (Greek-Latin) Liposuction (Greek-Latin) Metadata (Greek-Latin) Polyamory (Greek-Latin) Geostationary (Greek-Latin) Pseudoscience (Greek-Latin) Telephoto (Latin-Greek) Some non Greek/Latin examples: Nightgown (Old English-French) Uberleet (German-French) Refusenik (Latin/French-Russian) Beefsteak (French-Norse) Miniskirt (Italian-Norse) Prealgebra (as a school subject) (Latin-Arabic) Awkward (Norse-Old English) Egghead (Norse-Old English) Flatworm (Norse-Old English) Keelhaul (Norse-Old English) Skiptrace (Norse-Latin) Zeroize (Arabic-Greek) Sodapop (Arabic-Old English) Biohazard (Greek-Arabic) Crawlspace (Norse-Latin) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/51 "2014-10-17T04:22:55Z")
Blockhead (Dutch-Old English) Bathrobe (Old English-French) Battlecruiser (Latin-Dutch) Sketchbook (Dutch-Old English) Sodomize (Hebrew-Greek) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/52 "2014-10-17T04:42:31Z")
Chemotherapy (Latin-Greek) ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/53 "2014-10-17T04:58:16Z")
Chlorofluorocarbon (Greek-Latin-Latin) Spectrometer (Latin-Greek) Cyberspace (Greek-Latin) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/54 "2014-10-17T05:07:27Z")
Oxygen appears to be Greek and French. Helium is obviously Greek and Latin. Hell, the periodic table is loaded with compounds (einsteinium??). and then there are evil mutations like “barista” ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/55 "2014-10-17T07:30:56Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Isn’t the third declension the largest? > > [Latin declension - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Third_declension_.28i.29) Perhaps, but very few third declension nouns end in -us (in the nominative). The point was that the vast majority of -us nouns are second declension, and so end in -i in the nominative plural. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/56 "2014-10-17T07:48:27Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Oxygen appears to be Greek and French. Helium is obviously Greek and Latin. Hell, the periodic table is loaded with compounds (einsteinium??). > > and then there are evil mutations like “barista” Both the “bar-” part and the “-ista” part are from Latin, no? True, they travel via different routes before getting joined up in Italian and then loaned into English, but they are basically Latin. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2014, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708/57 "2014-10-17T08:35:35Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Oxygen appears to be Greek and French. Helium is obviously Greek and Latin. Hell, the periodic table is loaded with compounds (einsteinium??). On the contrary, there are no compounds in the periodic table at all. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-made-up-of-two-languages/441708.md?page=2)