before vowels pycn-, word-forming element meaning "close, thick, dense," from Latinized combining form of Greek pyknos "thick, dense, solid, compact; numerous; strong; brave; clever," which is of uncertain origin. Often in English via German as pykno-.
combining form used from 19c. to represent Latin latus "the side, flank of humans or animals, lateral surface," a word of uncertain origin. The Latin word also was used to express intimacy, attachment, or relationship via the notion of "attach to the side, at the side of."
word-forming element meaning "a speaking, discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science," from Greek -logia (often via French -logie or Medieval Latin -logia), from -log-, combining form of legein "to speak, tell;" thus, "the character or deportment of one who speaks or treats of (a certain subject);" from PIE root *leg- (1) "to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning "to speak (to 'pick out words')." Often via Medieval Latin -logia, French -logie. In philology "love of learning; love of words or discourse," apology, doxology, analogy, trilogy, etc., Greek logos "word, speech, statement, discourse" is directly concerned.
syllable formed when the word-forming element -ion (from Latin -io) is fixed to a base or to another suffix ending in -t or -te. In Middle English, in words via Old French, it often was -cion (in coercion and suspicion, however, the -c- belongs to the base).
suffix indicating state, condition, or quality; also activity or the result of it (as in victory, history, etc.), via Anglo-French and Old French -é, from Latin -ia, Greek -ia, from PIE *-a-, suffix forming abstract or collective nouns. It is etymologically identical with -ia and the second element in -cy, -ery, -logy, etc.
