cartography

The story

1. Ancient Greek · derived fromχάρτης“map”
2. French · derived fromcartographie
3. English todaycartography

From French cartographie, from carte (“map”) (ultimately from Ancient Greek χάρτης (khártēs, “map”)) + -graphie (“-graphy”) (from γράφω (gráphō, “write”)); carto- (“map”) + -graphy.

Words from the same roots

First known use, by meaning

• from 19th c. The creation of charts and maps based on the layout of a territory's geography.
• from 20th c. An illustrative discussion of a topic.