Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 15, 2026

-graphy

The English suffix -graphy denotes either a field of study or a manner of writing or representation. It derives from the French -graphie, which in turn comes from the Latin -graphia, itself a transliteration of the Greek -γραφία.

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The English suffix -graphy denotes either a field of study or a manner of writing or representation. It derives from the French -graphie, which in turn comes from the Latin -graphia, itself a transliteration of the Greek -γραφία (-graphia).

Because -graphy begins with a consonant, it is usually joined to a combining form that provides the linking vowel -o- (e.g. photo- + -graphy). This follows the pattern of neo-classical word formation, in which new English words are built from Greek and Latin elements in imitation of Greek compound and derivative structures.1

Arts and communication

  • Biography – an account of a person's life
    • Autobiography – biography of a person written by themselves
      • Autobiogeography – a self-referential map or other geographic document created by the subject
    • Hagiography – biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader
    • Metabiography – the study of how biographies are shaped by the temporal, geographical, institutional, intellectual, and ideological contexts of their authors
    • Photobiography – biography told primarily through photographs, often accompanied by brief textual commentary
    • Psychobiography – biographical study that interprets a subject's life and behavior through psychological theory or analysis
  • Choreography – the art of creating and arranging dances or ballets.
  • Cinematography – the art of making lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for the cinema
  • Floriography – the language of flowers
  • Iconography – the art of interpreting the content by icons.
  • Klecksography – the art of making images from inkblots.
  • Lexicography – the study of lexicons and the art of compiling dictionaries.
  • Photography – the art, practice or occupation of taking and printing photographs.
    • Astrophotography – the photography or imaging of astronomical objects
    • Chronophotography – the photographic technique which captures a number of phases of movements
    • Heliography – an early photographic process, based on the hardening of bitumen in sunlight
    • Rephotography – the act of photographing the same site twice, with a time lag between the two images
    • Telephotography – the sending of photographs by telegraph, telephone or radio
  • Pornography – the practice, occupation and result of producing sexually arousing imagery or words.
  • Pyrography – the art of decorating wood or other materials with burn marks
  • Reprography – the reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means
  • Scenography – the art of theatrical design and stage scenery
  • Tasseography – a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves
  • Telegraphy – the long-distance transmission of messages
  • Typography – the art and techniques of type design.
  • Videography – the art and techniques of filming video.
  • Vitrography – a method of using laser beams to create three-dimensional images or designs inside solid glass

Printing

Writing

  • Cacography – bad handwriting or spelling
  • Calligraphy – the art of fine handwriting
  • Chorography – the art of describing or mapping a region or district
  • Dittography – accidental repetition of letters or words when copying text
  • Garshunography – the use of the script of one language to write utterances of another language which already has a script associated with it; also known as allography or heterography
  • Haplography – accidental omission of repeated letters when writing
  • Ideography – the use of symbols to represent a concept or idea.
  • Orthography – the rules of correct writing.
  • Palaeography – the study of historical handwriting
  • Phonography – representation of sounds by written symbols; also known as Pitman shorthand
  • Pictography – the use of pictographs
  • Pseudepigraphy – falsely attributed writings
  • Psychography – a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing
  • Steganography – the art of writing hidden messages
  • Stenography – the art of writing in shorthand.

Archival and compilatory lists

Fields of study

  • Ampelography – the field of botany concerned with the identification and classification of grapevines
  • Cartography – the study and making of maps.
  • Chromatography – a chemical laboratory technique for the separation of a mixture
  • Cryptography – the study of securing information
  • Crystallography – the study of crystals
  • Dactylography – the study of fingerprints for identification
  • Demography – the study of the characteristics of human populations, such as size, growth, density, distribution, and vital statistics
  • Epigraphy – the study of written inscriptions on hard surfaces.
  • Ethnography – the study of cultures and cultural phenomena.
  • Geography – study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of the Earth.
  • Historiography – study of the methods of historians
  • Holography – a technique for recording and reconstructing wavefronts, best known for generating three-dimensional images (holograms)
  • Hydrography – measurement and description of any waters.
  • Keraunography – the belief that lightning, when striking an object, can leave markings which constitute a photographic image of surrounding objects
  • Monography – the study of a single specialized subject of the aspect of a subject.
  • Pathography – study of the history of an individual or community with regard to the influence of a physical or mental condition.
  • Polarography – a type of voltammetry
  • Reprography – reproduction of graphics through mechanical or electrical means.
  • Topography – the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those of planets, moons and asteroids.
  • Zoography – the study of animal description and their habits; descriptive zoology.

Astronomy

  • Areography – the study and mapping of the physical features of the planet Mars
  • Cosmography – the study and making of maps of the universe or cosmos
  • Selenography – the study and mapping of the physical features of the Moon
  • Uranography – the study and mapping of stars and space objects

Imaging techniques

Medical tests

See also

See also

References

References

  1. Prćić, Tvrtko (2019). "Exploring the Properties of English Lexical Affixes by Exploiting the Resources of English General-Purpose Dictionaries". Lexikos. 29: 1–29. doi:10.5788/29-1-1516. ISSN 2224-0039.
  2. Herrero-Zorita, Carlos; Molina, Clara; Moreno-Sandoval, Antonio (2015). "Medical term formation in English and Japanese: A study of the suffixes -gram, -graph and -graphy". Review of Cognitive Linguistics. 13 (1): 81–105. doi:10.1075/rcl.13.1.04her. hdl:10486/711361.
Further reading

Further reading