choreography

The story

1. Ancient Greek · derived fromχορεία“dance”
2. French · borrowed fromchorégraphie
3. English todaychoreography

Reshaping of earlier choregraphy, a borrowing from French chorégraphie, from Ancient Greek χορεία (khoreía, “dance”) + -γραφίᾱ (-graphíā, “written form (of a word, etc.), spelling”). By surface analysis, choreo- + -graphy. Both choregraphy and choreography replaced earlier chorography in the dance sense (from χορός (khorós, “dance ring, round dance”) + -γραφία (-graphía); compare Greek χορογραφία (chorografía)), which had been used in 1710 as a translation of the same French term.

Words from the same roots