Meaning

The science of language; linguistics..

Definitions by Sense

1. The science of language; linguistics.
2. (botany) The naming of parts of plants.
3. (chiefly lexicography) The definition and explanation of terms in constructing a glossary.
4. (medicine) The diagnosis of disease by examination of the tongue.

Example Sentences

Erudition has been divided by a German professor into glossology, bibliology and historiology; or a knowledge of languages, a knowlege^([sic – meaning knowledge]) of languages, a knowlege of books, and a knowlege of facts.

If all nations spoke one and the same language, much of the time now spent in the study of Glossology, would be saved.

[O]n all these questions, both those treated of in the present volume and those bearing on the ethnology and glossology of the Himalayan tribes, he [Brian Houghton Hodgson] has almost exclusively remained master of a field of research in which he had been the first to break ground.

It may be assumed as a starting-point, that the case-affixes are remnants of nouns or perhaps pronouns, which have been cut down and worn away by use. I think it will be admitted by all philologists that any other assumption would be irreconcileable, not only with the fundamental principles of modern Aryan glossology, but with the universal laws of language.

A plant in flower, surveyed externally, may be perceived to be composed of a variety of obvious parts, such as the root, the stem, the branch, the leaf, the flower, the fruit, and perhaps the seed; and other parts less obvious, as buds, prickles, tendils, hairs, glands, &c. These, with their modifications, and all the relative circumstances which enter into the botanical description of a plant, constitute the subject of glossology, the details of which, involving the definition of some hundreds of terms, are here omitted; because to those conversant to them it would be of little use, and those who have them still to learn will find it more convenient to have recourse to some elementary work, where most of them are illustrated by figures.

I beg leave to differ from you in printing the etymology of names that are from the Greek in English, and not in Greek letters. I think they would answer the end in view much better if they were in Greek characters; it would be far more conducive to a general knowledge of botanical glossology, and a greater stimulus to the student.

In 1843 [Friedrich Traugott] Kützing published his "Phycologia Generalis", accompanied by eighty anatomical plates of unrivalled excellence and beauty. […] The chief excellencies of the book are its anatomical illustrations: its faults are, the needless alteration of established names; the introduction of unnecessary glossology; and the multiplication of Orders, genera, and species, many of them grouping together plants but little related, and others separating nearly allied species.

Amongst the causes which have contributed to obscure this branch of Botany, we must especially allude to the prevalence of the habit indulged in by many authors of creating a special nomenclature without regard to that of their predecessors; the slightest structural modification is no sooner recognized than a new term is invented for it, so that the same organ has received several names; and, to add to the complication, the same name has been on several occasions applied to different organs. This redundant glossology which even [Carl] Linnæus termed a calamity ('Verbositas præsente seculo calamitas scientiæ') has always proved an obstacle to the progress of science.

Word Forms

• glossologies

Synonyms for glossology

Related Words

When Should You Use Glossology?

Use glossology when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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