Definition: Philology

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Etymology

Inherited from Middle English philologie, from Latin philologia, from Ancient Greek φιλολογίᾱ (philologíā, “love of argument or reasoning, love of learning and literature”).

Noun

philology (countable and uncountable, plural philologies)

  1. (linguistics) The humanistic study of historical linguistics.
    his love of philology led him to study the “prehistory” of Kantian critique in Descartes, Galileo, and Copernicus, all the way back to Plato.
  2. (philosophy) Love and study of learning and literature, broadly speaking.
  3. (culture) Scholarship and culture, particularly classical, literary and linguistic.

Derived terms

  • philologist

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