Lexicologist

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A scholar who specializes in lexicology, the scientific study of the vocabulary of a language and the meanings of its words
2. Someone who researches the history, form and meaning of words, including how vocabularies are built and organized
3. A specialist in the study of vocabulary, examining how words are formed, related to one another and given meaning

Etymology: The word "lexicologist" is built from two Greek pieces. The first, "lexikos," meant "of words," and it comes from "lexis," a saying, speech or word, which in turn grows from the Greek verb "legein," to speak. The second piece, "-logist," comes from "logos," the Greek term for word, reason or discourse, and it is the same root found in words like "biologist" and "geologist." So a lexicologist is, quite literally, a specialist in words, with the ancient sense of "speech" still visible in the first half. The surprise lies in how little the Greek word "lexikos" was itself about dictionaries. It described things connected with words and speech in general, and the dictionary sense only arrived later, when "lexicon" came to mean a book of words. "Lexicologist" follows that later path: it names someone who studies not only what words mean but how they are formed and how whole vocabularies are assembled and arranged.

Synonyms: lexicographer