cosmology

Etymology

It is borrowed from New Latin cosmologia,^[2][3][4][5] formed from Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos, “order, ornament, world, universe”) and -λογία (-logía, “discourse”).^[2][3][6][7] The OED cites no ancient record of the compound, only the Greek type, and compares French cosmologie,^[2] which Barnhart gives as the immediate source and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English as an alternative one.^[7][8][6] The Greek suffix goes back to -λόγος (-lógos, “one who speaks; one who deals with a topic”).^[9] The OED notes that the first of these was said to be the word for the universe because of its perfect order, a use ascribed to Pythagoras or his disciples.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The science or theory of the universe as an ordered whole, and of the general laws governing it: 1656, in Blount's Glossographia.^[2][7][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1650s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the study of the universe, and could also name one particular account of it.^[2] By 1753, in the supplement to Chambers's Cyclopædia, it had a narrower philosophical sense: the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as a totality of phenomena in space and time.^[2][3] Klein, writing in the 1960s, defined it only as that part of metaphysics.^[9] The scientific use, the branch of astronomy that studies the origin, evolution and structure of the universe, stands beside the philosophical one in Collins and Merriam-Webster Unabridged and comes first in the Shorter Oxford,^[10][5][8] which illustrates it with phrases about the big bang and the expanding universe.^[8] The agent noun cosmologist dates from the late 18th century.^[8]

Timeline

• 1656 – the science or theory of the universe as an ordered whole; also a particular account of it.^[2][7]
• 1753 – the branch of metaphysics dealing with the world as a totality.^[2][3]
• late 18th century – the derivative cosmologist.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The branch of philosophy or metaphysics that deals with the origin and nature of the universe as a whole.^{[10][5][8][2]}
2. A particular theory or account of the origin or order of the universe: the cosmology of the Stoics.^[10][5][2]
3. The branch of astronomy that studies the origin, evolution and structure of the universe.^[10][5][8]

Word family

• cosmologic
• cosmologically
• cosmologist
• cosmological
• cosmologer

Related words

• cosmic
• cosmogony
• cosmos
• -logy

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins