Words related to -graphy
Middle English kerven (the initial -k- is from influence of Scandinavian forms), from Old English ceorfan (class III strong verb; past tense cearf, past participle corfen) "to cut," also "cut down, slay; cut out," from West Germanic *kerbanan (source also of Old Frisian kerva, Middle Dutch and Dutch kerven, German kerben "to cut, notch"), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch," making carve the English cognate of Greek graphein "to write," originally "to scratch" on clay tablets with a stylus.
Once extensively used and the general verb for "to cut;" most senses now have passed to cut (v.) and since 16c. carve has been restricted to specialized senses such as "cut (solid material) into the representation of an object or a design" (late Old English); "cut (meat, etc.) into pieces or slices" (early 13c.); "produce by cutting" (mid-13c.); "decorate by carving" (late 14c.). Related: Carved; carving. The original strong conjugation has been abandoned, but archaic past-participle adjective carven lingers poetically.
"a person's signature," 1791, from French autographe, from Late Latin autographum, from Greek autographon, neuter of autographos "written with one's own hand," from autos "self" (see auto-) + graphein "to write" (originally "to scratch;" see -graphy). Used earlier (1640s) to mean "author's own manuscript." As an adjective, "written by oneself," by 1832. Related: Autographic.
1670s, "the writing of books," from Greek bibliographia "the writing of books," from biblion "book" (see biblio-) + graphos "(something) drawn or written" (see -graphy).
The meaning "the study of books, authors, publications, etc.," is from 1803. The sense of "a list of books that form the literature of a subject" is attested by 1814. Related: Bibliographic.
1680s, "the histories of individual lives, as a branch of literature," probably from Medieval Latin biographia, from later Greek biographia "description of life" (which was not in classical Greek, bios alone being the word there for it), from Greek bios "life" (from PIE root *gwei- "to live") + graphia "record, account" (see -graphy).
The meaning "a history of some one person's life" is from 1791. The meaning "life course of any living being" is by 1854. No one-word verb form has become common; biographise/biographize (1800), biography (1844), biograph (1849) have been tried.
"a description of foods," 1844, from combining form of Greek brōma "food" + -graphy "a writing, recording, or description."
also (and originally) kapnography, "the art of drawing by means of smoke" (or carbon deposited by a flame), 1871, from Greek kapnos "smoke" (see capnomancy) + -graphy. Related: Capnographic; kapnographic.
Kapnography—if we are called on to christen the new Art—may be said to be the very reverse of photography. In the one, the subtle play and reflexion of light is imprisoned by the magic chemistry of the sunbeam ; in the other the human imagination guides the hand to trace designs on the very type of change and emblem of destruction. To fix the faces seen in the fire, or to delineate the ever-changing forms of the clouds, does not seem to be a more unpromising task, than that of producing Alps and glaciers, forests and châlets, waterfalls and wood-hung streams, out of very vapour of combustion—the smoke of a candle. [The Art-Journal, vol. X, 1871]
