WORD ROOTS 49
HERE’S A HINT
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LEARNING STYLE
For many people, especially visual learners, the best way to memorize words is to
create a picture in the mind associated with that word. For example, to remember
the root pug,you might picture a pug dog in a boxing ring, or a boxer with a pug
nose. Similarly, you might picture a stop sign with the root cedwritten on it instead
of stop,or a yield sign with cessinstead of yield.You could also picture a traffic light
for the root ced/ceed/cess,because the colors of the traffic light correspond with
the three meanings of this root: go, stop, yield. If you are a visual learner, again, use
pictures to help you remember words. To remember that eumeans good or well,
you can picture the letters EU on a well.
If you are an auditory learner, you can come up with rhymes or short sentences
to help you remember root meanings. For example, you could try one of these sen-
tences for the root am,meaning love:I amlove.
I love Amy.
I love ham.Many different words can be built from a single root. For example, look at the
number of words and the rich variety of meaning that comes from the Greek root
chron, meaning time.
chron ic: continuing for a long time; on-going, habitual; long-lasting or recur-
rent
chron ology: the arrangement of events in time; the sequence in which events
occurred
chron icle: a detailed record or narrative description of past events; to record
in chronological order, make a historical record
chron ological: relating to chronology; arranged in order of time of occurrence
chron ometer: an exceptionally accurate clock; a precise instrument for meas-
uring time
syn chron ize: to cause to occur at the same time or agree in time; to occur at
the same time, be simultaneousBy changing the suffix of synchronize, we can create even more words. For exam-
ple, we can turn it into the noun synchronicity, which is the state or fact of being syn-
chronous, an adjective that means occurring or existing at the same time.