The etymology of common geological terms

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Q. - What do you get when you cross a geologist by profession and an etymologist by fascination?

A. - The author of this blog post.

I'm a Teaching Assistant (TA) this semester for a course on Sedimentology and Stratigraphy being offered at the Department of Earth Sciences, IIT Kanpur. It's a great opportunity to revise a subject that I was previously only average at, and to explore nooks and crannies in the syllabus that I could not previously devote much time to. One gem of my contemplation has been the exploring of word roots of some common terms.

A short note on the etymology of common geological terms

SEDIMENT

Sediment comes from the root "sed" which essentially means "to sit". Sediment is quite literally the stuff that sits/sinks or settles down from a liquid. What is interesting to note is that sedative is also derived from the same word root; it's something that calms you and makes you sit down. And when you're complaining of the sedentary lifestyle most of us lead nowadays, you're invoking the same word root. A sederunt is a sitting where (Scottish?) people convene, a session being a more common example. When an authority supersedes something, they're sitting on top of something (an order / an appeal?). Sedan and saddle also emanate from the same word root, and so does reside (if you're a resident of a country, that's where you sit down or dwell).

Things get really interesting when one mixes roots, for example -- preside is derived from "prae" (before) and "sed" (sit). A president quite literally sits before a group of people and superintends them. A cathedral is a bishop's chair (and "kata" means down, which I guess means a cathedral was a place where wisdom was passed downwards from the heavens above to the common man). An assiduous person is continually sitting, working hard. And an insidious person is sitting in, lying in wait to trap you.

Did you ever think a word as benign and trivial as "sediment" could have so many cousins? 😊

TRANSGRESSION

Geologists use transgression to denote a rise in sea level and a landward movement of the shoreline. It derives from "trans" that means across / beyond, and "gressus" (from "gradi") that mean to walk. The sea quite literally walks across the existing shoreline, and in the process, shifts the shoreline.

"Trans" has various other interesting manifestations, as in transformation (a change across different forms) or transfer (a movement across places). In non-technical English, a transgression is also a crime, an event when someone crosses the boundary of the law. A transect ("trans" + "secare"=cut) cuts across something, a transient phenomenon crosses over time very quickly. The same root gives us trajectory (throw across), transmission (send across), translucence (shine across) and transmigration (wander across). Translation is carrying text across languages, and transliteration is carrying it across alphabets (letters). A transgender is someone whose personal identity crosses the gender line. Traditions are handed down across generations. Going one step forward, an avatar crosses over from the heavens to the Earth.

REGRESSION

The sister-phenomenon of regression, is derived from "re" (back) and "gradi" (to step / walk). To geologists, it is a withdrawal of the sea. A centrigrade is a hundred steps, a graduate is someone who stepped forward and an ingredient steps into the recipe. Depending on your mood, you could also aggress (step towards), congress (step / come together), digress (step away), egress (step out), ingress (step in), progress (step forward), retrogress (step backward) or transgress.

And all of it relates to the same as the stepping-back of the sea !

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