| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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8. Word Formation: Plurals, Possessives, Affixes, and Compounds
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| § 20. hydro- |
| The prefix hydro- is from the Greek prefix hudro- or hudr-, which comes from the Greek noun hudor, meaning “water.” Thus in the word hydrophobia, hudro- combines with the suffix -phobia, “fear,” to mean “an abnormal fear of water.” Hydrophobia is an example of a Greek word that was later adopted into Latin, then French, and then English. Hydroelectric, hydroplane, and hydrosphere are examples of words more recently formed in English. Before a vowel, hydro- sometimes becomes hydr-: hydrate, hydrous. | 1 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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