English
tellurion
Tellurion comes from Latin tellūs ‘earth, ground’.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtellūs‘earth, ground’
- Englishearliest quotation 1771tellurion
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtellūs‘earth, ground’
- Englishearliest quotation 1771tellurion
Earliest quotation: 1771, Benjamin Martin, Of the Tellurian: “The Second Part of this Orrery I call a…”
Formed from -ion
The story
From Latin tellūs (‘earth, ground; the globe, planet Earth; country, land’) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- (‘ground, bottom’) + -ion (a Latinate suffix used in place of -ian (suffix meaning ‘one from, belonging to, relating to, or like’)), possibly coined by Benjamin Martin (baptized 1705; died 1782), an English lecturer, lexicographer, and maker of scientific instruments: see the quotation.
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *telh₂- ‘ground, bottom’
talent, tolerance, toll, atlas, tolerate, tolerant, intolerable, tolerable, extol, toleration, 17 more
Today it means
noun An instrument used to show how the rotation of the Earth on its axis and its orbit around the Sun cause day and night and the seasons.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin tellūs / tellurion