Etymology

spectrometer

spec·trom·e·ter
S1P3E1C3T1R1O1M3E1T1E1R1

Today it means: An optical instrument for measuring the absorption of light by chemical substances; typically it will plot a graph of absorption versus wavelength or frequency, and the patterns produced are used to identify the substances present, and their internal structure. Full definition →

Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron) ← Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- ← English spectro-
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*speḱ-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*spéḱyeti
  3. Proto-Italic*spekjō
  4. Latinspeciō
  5. Latinspectrum
  6. Englishspectrum
  7. Englishspectro-
  8. Proto-Indo-European*med-
  9. Proto-Indo-European*meh₁-
  10. Ancient Greekμέτρον (métron)
  11. English todayspectrometer

From spectro- + -meter.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.