toponymy
(təʊˈpɒnɪmɪ)
Also erron. toponomy.
[f. topo- +Gr. -ωνυµία, f. ὄνοµα name: cf. homonymy, synonymy.]
1. The place-names of a country or district as a subject of study.
| 1876 W. K. Sullivan in Encycl. Brit. V. 306/2 The substitution of vague descriptions of dress and arms, and a vague toponomy, for the full and definite descriptions and precise toponomy of the primitive poems. 1887 Athenæum 20 Aug. 240/3 This book..does not deal at all with topography in the proper sense, but merely (if the word may be tolerated as English) with ‘toponymy’. 1893 Academy 22 July 72/3 These papers are of interest for Basque toponymy and language. 1900 Denniker Races of Man xiii. 557 The pre-Columbian aborigines of Porto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, and Cuba were Arawaks, to judge from the toponymy of these islands. |
2. Anat. (See
quot.)
| 1882 Wilder & Gage Anat. Techn. 20 Terms of Position and Direction—Toponymy. Ibid. 23 The Intrinsic Toponymy... We..shall designate the aspects and regions of the body by terms derived from names which have been applied to the parts themselves. 1899 in Syd. Soc. Lex. |
So
toˈponymal a., of or pertaining to toponymy;
topoˈnymical a. = prec. adj.;
toˈponymist, one who deals with place-names.
| 1891 Cent. Dict., *Toponymal. |
| 1882 Wilder & Gage Anat. Techn. 20 Such terms constitute a *Toponymical Vocabulary which is based upon intrinsic instead of purely extrinsic and accidental relations. |
| a 1852 Macgillivray Nat. Hist. Dee Side (1855) 235 Appropriately named by the Celts—who were famous *toponymists,..Na claisean—The Furrows. |