geo-
(ˈdʒiːəʊ-, dʒiːˈɒ-)
repr. Gr. γεω-, comb. form of γῆ earth; in compounds formed in Greek itself, as geography γεωγραϕία, and in many of mod. formation; as ˈgeoblast [-blast] (see quot.); geoboˈtanic a., geobotanical; ˌgeoboˈtanical a., of or pertaining to geographical botany; geoˈbotany = phytogeography; so geoˈbotanist; ˌgeoˈchronic a., of or pertaining to geological time (Funk); ˌgeochroˈnometry, (a) an extension of geometry conceived as taking time into account as the fourth dimension; the ‘geometry’ of space-time; (b) absolute geochronology, in which events are assigned (approximate) dates in relation to the present instead of to other events; ˌgeoˈclinal a. nonce-wd. [Gr. κλίν-ειν to lean + -al1], (see quot.); geocoˈrona, an envelope of gas surrounding the earth, resembling the sun's corona and consisting chiefly of ionized hydrogen; geoˈcratic a. [Gr. -κρατία rule + -ic], (a) applied to earth-movements which reduce the area of the earth's surface covered by water: opp. hydrocratic a.; (b) of or pertaining to the predominant influence of the natural environment on man; ˌgeoˈcyclic a., of or pertaining to the revolutions of the earth; also (see quot.) geocyclic machine (see quot.); ˌgeodyˈnamic a., of or pertaining to the (latent) forces of the earth; so ˌgeodyˈnamical a.; ˌgeodyˈnamics, the study of geodynamic forces; geˈogenous a. [Gr. -γεν-ής born, produced + -ous], (said of certain fungi) growing or springing directly from the ground; ˌgeoˈisotherm, an underground isotherm (Funk); ˌgeomorˈphogeny, the science dealing with the genesis of the physical features of the earth's surface; so ˌgeomorphoˈgenic a., ˌgeomorˈphogenist; ˌgeonaviˈgation, ‘a term proposed for that branch of the science of navigation in which the place of a ship at sea is determined by referring it to some other spot on the surface of the earth—in opposition to Cœlo-navigation’ (Ogilvie 1882); geˈonomy [Gr. -νοµία arrangement], ‘the science of the physical laws relating to the earth, including geology and physical geography’ (Ogilvie 1882); hence ˌgeoˈnomic a.; ˌgeophysiˈognomy (see quot.); ˌgeoplaˈnarian [L. plānus flat + -arian], one who believes the earth to be flat, a ‘flat-earther’; geopoˈtential, the work that must be done against gravity to raise unit mass to a given point from sea level; ˌgeoseˈlenic a. [selenic], relating to the earth and the moon; ˈgeosphere, any of the more or less spherical concentric regions that together constitute the earth and its atmosphere; ˌgeoˈstatic a. [Gr. στατικ-ός causing to stand], only in geostatic arch, an arch of a construction suited to bear the pressure of earth (Ogilvie 1882); geostatics pl., ‘the statics of rigid bodies’ (Cent. Dict.); geoˈstationary a., of, pertaining to, or designating an artificial satellite that revolves round the earth in one day and hence remains above a fixed point on the earth's surface; geoˈstrategy, strategy as applied to the problems of geo-politics, ‘global strategy’; hence ˌgeostraˈtegic(al) adjs.; geoˈtaxis Biol., a taxis (see taxis 6) in which the external stimulus is the force of gravity; so geoˈtactic a.; geoˈtechnic a., of or pertaining to geotechnics; geoˈtechnics, the art of modifying and adapting the physical nature of the earth to the needs of man; geotechˈnology, ‘the application of scientific methods and engineering techniques to the exploitation and utilization of natural resources (as mineral resources)’ (Webster 1961); ˌgeotecˈtonic a. [Gr. τεκτονικ-ός skilled in building, f. τέκτων a craftsman], of or pertaining to the structure of the earth; structural; ˌgeotecˈtonical a. [f. prec. + -al1] = prec.; ˌgeoˈthermal a., of or pertaining to the internal heat of the earth; ˌgeoˈthermic a. = prec.; ˌgeotherˈmometer (see quot.).
| 1880 Gray Struct. Bot. 413/1 *Geoblast, a plumule which in germination rises from underground, such as that of the Pea. |
| 1904 Pop. Sci. Monthly May 71 The immense region..on *geo-botanic maps..has not the uniformity which one would be inclined to attribute to it. |
| 1888 Nature 12 Apr. 570 M. Kuznetsoff will continue his *geo-botanical work on the northern slope of Caucasus. |
| 1901 U.S. Dept. Agric. Bur. Plant Industry Bull. III. 18 The most thorough investigations have been given to the Chernozem soils by Russian *geo-botanists. 1960 Times 24 Sept. 19/2 A geobotanist has been included..on all major geological expeditions. |
| 1904 Pop. Sci. Monthly May 68 (title) The geology and *geo-botany of Asia. 1956 Nature 17 Mar. 520/2 Geobotany, geochemistry and geophysics of all the central and eastern African lakes. |
| 1923 C. D. Broad Sci. Thought xii. 457 A sense-history and the physical world are both four-dimensional spatio-temporal wholes, and we must therefore talk of their *geo-chronometry rather than their geometry. 1949 Mind LVIII. 219 The alternative ‘geochronometries’ developed in mathematical physics convey little or no information about the ultimate nature of time. 1960 Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. LXXI. 223/1 Despite the major advances in the technique of geochronometry the establishment of the absolute age of the geological, i.e. paleontological, time scale has proceeded very slowly. 1970 Nature 2 May 473/1 In practice..potassium-argon geochronometry does not always reveal the initial age of crystallization. |
| 1863 Dana Man. Geol. 722 These great valleys or depressions..may be called *geoclinal, the inclination on which they depend being in the mass of the crust, and not in its strata. |
| 1960 Aeroplane 8 July 53/1 Analysis of data obtained from the Soviet space⁓probe, Lunik II,..has shown that the Earth is enveloped in a ‘*geo-corona’ of ionized gas. 1962 New Scientist 12 July 94/3 This region composed essentially of protons..is called variously the exosphere, hydrogen geocorona or..the magnetosphere. 1969 Nature 20 Dec. 1187/1 The solar Lyman-α radiation..is scattered by the geocorona into the dark hemisphere of the Earth. |
| 1898 Geogr. Jrnl. Feb. 133 Hydrocratic and *geocratic movements alternated during Jurassic times. 1951 G. Taylor Geogr. 20th Cent. i. 5 Humboldt..thus developed what I have been accustomed to call a ‘Geocratic’ type of geography, which suggests that the earth (i.e. Nature) itself plays a great part in determining the type of life which develops in a particular area. |
| 1847 Craig, *Geocyclic, circling the earth periodically. 1884 Cassell's Encycl. Dict., Geocyclic machine, a machine for exhibiting the simple processes by which day and night and the seasons are produced. |
| 1885 Harper's Mag. Feb. 494/1 The Central *Geodynamic Observatory at Rome. |
| 1887 G. H. Darwin in Fortn. Rev. Feb. 271 A ‘*Geodynamical Observatory’. |
| 1885 Nature 22 Oct. 609/2 Full scope was given to seismology, vulcanology, and *geodynamics. 1958 A. E. Scheidegger (title) Principles of geodynamics. |
| 1896 Nature 18 June 147/1 After the *geomorphogenic introduction, two lessons are given to geological principles. |
| 1904 Amer. Geologist Mar. 159 Very few of the *geomorphogenists have carried their new science forward into a geographical relation. |
| 1894 A. C. Lawson in Univ. Calif. Bull. Dept. Geol. I. viii. 241 (title) The *geomorphogeny of the coast of Northern California. 1909 W. B. Scott Introd. Geol. (ed. 2) 435 It would be an advantage in clearness and precision of nomenclature, if Geomorphogeny could be substituted [for Physiography or Physiographical Geography]. |
| 1854 Mayne Expos. Lex., Geonomia, *geonomy. |
| 1896 Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 819 The significance of landscape contours or *geophysiognomy. |
| 1930 Proc. Arist. Soc. XXX. 114, I am thinking, say, of the earth as flat, as when I want to refute a geoplanarian. |
| 1914 V. Bjerknes in Q. Jrnl. Meteorol. Soc. XL. 161 It should be borne in mind that in dynamical meteorology gravity-potential (or *geopotential as it is now proposed to call it) has to be used as a co-ordinate. 1939 Meteorol. Gloss. (Met. Office) (ed. 3) 97 The zero of potential is taken as at sea level... Points with the same geopotential may be said to be at the same level. By using geopotential rather than height for specifying the position of parts of the atmosphere, the consideration of the air movements is simplified. 1970 Nature 9 May 494/2 The theory of the determination of the geopotential from satellite tracking data is not fully understood. |
| 1860 Worcester, *Geoselenic. |
| 1898 W. J. McGee in Nat. Geogr. Mag. IX. 436 The atmosphere..is one of the *geospheres, the outermost of the four. Ibid. 437 The earth has an interior portion much denser than the known exterior; and this..may conveniently be called a centrosphere—the innermost of the four geospheres. 1913 J. Murray Ocean x. 227 Our earth..is composed of concentric spheres or shells of matter in the gaseous, liquid, and solid or ‘trans-solid’ states. These have been called Geospheres, viz., the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, the biosphere, the tektosphere, and the great centrosphere. |
| 1961 Aeroplane CI. 16/2 Raising a communication satellite from a low-circular orbit into a *geostationary orbit at 22,300 miles. 1967 New Scientist 25 May 456/3 How difficult, if not impossible, it is to ensure that a so-called geostationary satellite is truly stationary. 1968 New Statesman 13 Dec. 828/1 The existence of geo-stationary satellites and the enormous investment in world-wide communications will increase the flow of information and disseminate it on a scale that almost defies the imagination. |
| 1944 G. B. Cressey Asia's Lands & Peoples ii. 32 The function of *geostrategy is to understand a nation's problems and potential and to suggest a program of internal development and international cooperation that will be of mutual value. 1957 Encycl. Brit. X. 182H/1 In theory a branch of geopolitics,..geo-strategy treated warfare as total, embracing the entire populations and resources of the contesting states... It helped to make Germany the first country to realize that airpower could take a position alongside seapower and landpower. 1958 New Statesman 26 Apr. 517/1 Pearl Harbour, indeed, provides the point of departure for American geostrategy. |
| 1899 Natural Sci. Apr. 329 The negatively *geotactic organism should become positively geotactic in solutions of greater specific gravity than its own. |
| Ibid., The tendency that some Infusorians have to collect near the surface of the water in which they live has been regarded as a reaction to the force of gravity,—a negative *geotaxis. 1908 C. Davenport Exper. Morphol. v. 117 On warm days the typical geotactic phenomena are often absent. 1962 New Scientist 6 Dec. 545/2 Common observation indicates that moths fly towards a light (‘positive phototaxis’) and flies climb up a window pane (‘negative geotaxis’)... The response of the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster to gravity (‘geotaxis’) was tested in an ingenious vertical maze. 1964 Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. II. 476 The marked geotactic orientation of lamellibranch molluscs is well known. Ibid., The animals orient with a positive geotaxis in the sand or mud. |
| 1914 Geddes & Thomson Sex x. 241 Our aims are not only synthetic, as men-philosophers say, but applied—that is *geotechnic, as with practical women, who, as the anthropologists confess, had the first word in cultivation. 1924 Glasgow Herald 15 Nov. 4/2 Man..indulges in big geotechnic operations such as cutting a Panama Canal. |
| 1927 A. Defries Interpreter ix. 217 Neotechnics has its physical science, *geotechnics its vital sciences, its synthetic aims. 1968 New Scientist 19 Sept. 607/1 The geotechnics division of the station is well-known for its studies of civil engineering enterprises. |
| 1942 Sci. News Let. 12 Dec. 370 A new word, ‘*geotechnology’, has been coined to include all the mineral arts and sciences from metallurgy to ceramics. 1961 Times 7 Mar. 2/5 Engineering Pedologist/Geologist.. with.. post-graduate research experience in pedology, sedimentary geology or geotechnology. |
| 1882 Geikie Text-bk. Geol. iv. 474 *Geotectonic (Structural) Geology, or the architecture of the earth's crust. Ibid. iv. vii. 537 The characters by which an eruptive (igneous) rock may be distinguished are partly lithological and partly geotectonic. |
| 1881 Nature XXIV. 363 The study of the *geotectonical conditions of the localities where they [earthquakes] occur. |
| 1875 J. H. Bennet Winter Medit. i. i. 13 The peculiar mildness of the winter may also be partly accounted for on *geothermal..grounds. 1940 Chambers's Techn. Dict., 374/1 Geothermal gradient (Mining), the rate at which the temperature of the earth's crust increases with depth. 1955 Times 5 July p. ii/3 An interesting possibility is the exploitation of geothermal steam—steam generated naturally below the surface of the earth. Ibid. 14 July 14/6 The large heavy water plant which will form part of the scheme for using the steam from the geothermal springs in New Zealand. 1971 Nature 29 Jan. 300 An unsuccessful attempt to develop geothermal power in a known geothermal area. |
| 1882 Ogilvie, *Geothermic. |
| 1855 Ibid. Suppl., *Geothermometer, an instrument for measuring the degree of terrestrial heat at different places, especially in mines and artesian wells. |
______________________________
Add:
geocorona: hence
ˌgeocoˈronal a., of, pertaining to, or originating from the geocorona.
| 1959 Planetary & Space Sci. I. 65/1 There is no sufficient argument for the present to refute the ‘*geocoronal’ hypothesis. 1963 Jrnl. Geophysical Res. LXVIII. 2657/1 The line width of the geocoronal Lyman α has been assumed to be 0.018A. 1978 Nature 5 Oct. 382/1 The only detectable sky background source is geocoronal Lyα emission. |