τεχνολογία

Forms

τεχνολογῐ́ᾱ (tekhnologíā) f (genitive τεχνολογῐ́ᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek τεχνολόγος (tekhnológos, “one who writes on an art”) + -ία (-ía).^[1][2] The base is a compound of τέχνη (tékhnē, “art, craft”) and λέγω (légō, “to speak”).^[3][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Philodemus uses it in the plural in his Rhetoric, and Cicero uses the Greek word in a letter to Atticus, both in the 1st century BC, for the systematic treatment of an art.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

In Greek the word meant a systematic treatise on an art or the exposition of its rules, above all of grammar.^[6][2][5] Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus and Galen use it, and Babiniotis notes that its first sense was the grammatical analysis of words, while from the Hellenistic period it also meant the presentation of the rules of an art or technique, as in Galen.^[6][7][3] The Byzantine lexicon of Zonaras describes it as the working of speech with a view to winning an argument.^[8]

From that sense came French technologie, which came to mean the whole of technical knowledge and in that sense was taken back into Greek.^[3][9] Modern Greek τεχνολογία (technología) has both the learned French sense (technology) and, as a separate word, the ancient one of grammatical analysis.^[9] The English word technology is recorded from the 1610s as “a discourse on an art”, and as the study of the mechanical and industrial arts by 1859.^[5]

Timeline

• 1st century BC – Philodemus and Cicero use it for the systematic treatment of an art.^[6][2]
• 1st to 2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it in the plural.^[6][2]
• 2nd century AD – Galen and Apollonius Dyscolus use it in medical and grammatical works.^[7][3]
• 2nd to 3rd century AD – Sextus Empiricus uses it.^[6][2]
• 1610s – The English word technology is first recorded.^[5]
• 1859 – The English word is first recorded for the study of the industrial arts.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Systematic treatment of an art, especially of grammar; a treatise on the rules of an art.^[6][2][10]
2. A quibble, sophistical argument.^[11][8]

Related words

• τέχνη (tékhnē)
• τεχνολόγος (tekhnológos)
• English technology
• French technologie

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
3. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ Malhadas, Daisi; Dezotti, Maria Celeste C.; Neves, Maria Helena de Moura, eds. (2006–2010), Dicionário Grego-Português, São Paulo: Ateliê; digital ed. 3 (2022), UNESP Araraquara
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
11. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli