What's a word meaning "having mixed Greek and Latin roots"?

May 6, 2007 5:30 PM

I need to find the word meaning "a word with mixed Latin and Greek roots." It's not just "hybrid word," but a word that specifically indicated Greek and Latin origins. I've had several people remark that they know it but can't think of it, and my search skills have failed thusfar.
posted by luftmensch to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

Classical compound?
posted by aerotive at 5:43 PM on May 6, 2007

I've heard it referred to as a 'bastardism.'
posted by AwkwardPause at 6:18 PM on May 6, 2007

In Spanish you say "grecolatino," though I search with that tetm and didn't find much. I only included it here 'cause it might help you remember the one you are looking for.
posted by micayetoca at 6:23 PM on May 6, 2007

Greco-Roman hybrid? Just a guess, but googling that found this. I know that's not a single word, but it's the best I could come up with.
posted by sanko at 6:25 PM on May 6, 2007

I searched for a full five minutes and I have concluded that this is your chance to coin a new word.
posted by longsleeves at 7:53 PM on May 6, 2007

heteroradical?
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 PM on May 6, 2007

Macaronic?
posted by jet_silver at 8:43 PM on May 6, 2007

I've heard words like that referred to as "chimeras," but that doesn't specifically denote the Greco-Roman sense ("Greco-Roman chimeras" might work, or you could go all meta on a lexochimera...)
posted by klangklangston at 10:52 PM on May 6, 2007

No idea, but maybe you were thinking of this quote - "Television? The word is half Greek, half Latin. No good can come of it."
C. P. Snow
posted by scodger at 11:30 PM on May 6, 2007

The Tenser has written about this a few times, and he seems to call them "Greek-Latin hybrid compounds."

Unexciting, I guess, but there you have it.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:52 AM on May 7, 2007