Chronologies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A systematic arrangement of events according to their chronological sequence
2. An organized record that depicts events in the order they happened
3. A detailed record listing events as they occurred in time

Etymology: The word "chronology" was built from Ancient Greek parts: "khrónos" meaning time, and "lógos," which carried senses of reason, account and speech. Greek scholars combined these into a term for the reckoning of time, and the ancient sense of "lógos" as an account explains the second half. The Latinized "chronologia" then appeared in early modern European scholarship, which is where English drew it from. The "-logy" ending is what makes the word a family member of many modern terms. It passed through Latin "-logia" and French "-logie" before settling into English as "-logy," and it signals "study of" or "account of" a subject, as in biology or geology. Chronology thus names an account of time, a telling of what happened when. Chronologies is simply the plural form, used for several such accounts, such as the timelines of different historical periods or of a single person's life.

Synonyms: timelines, histories