Today's Word "Dendrochronology"
Published in Vocabulary
dendrochronology \den-dreh-kreh-NAH-leh-gee\ (noun) - The study of the history of climatic and environmental changes of a geographical region based on the interpretation of the annual growth rings in the trunks of trees.
"We stopped burning logs in our fireplace when an amateur dendrochronologist told us how much history of the area was going up in smoke."
Today's word comes from a Greek-based compound made up of dendron "tree" + another compound, "chronologia" from chronos "time" + log- "word, idea" + ia, a noun suffix. Greek dendron "tree" also found its way into dendrophile "tree-lover" and dendrolatry "tree-worship." The root is from Proto-Indo-European *doru-, deru-, dru- "solid, be firm." The [u] tended to become [w] or [v] if preceded by a vowel, so we find in Old Slavic drevo "tree, wood," which remains in Serbian but has become "derevo" in Russian. In Old English it became "treow" and, ultimately, "tree." The *deru- form gave us "tar," originally derived from the sap of trees.
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