geologyn.

Etymology: < geo- comb. form + -logy comb. form, partly after post-classical Latin geologia (1345 in the title of a work by Richard de Bury in the sense ‘science of earthly things’; 17th cent. in various continental and British sources referring to the study of geographical or geological phenomena: see below). Compare Italian geologia (1603 as †giologia in the manuscript of the will of Ulisse Aldrovandi, apparently originally in sense ‘study of fossils, palaeontology’; after e.g. zoologia zoology n.; rare before c1798), Spanish geología (1621 in uncertain sense, perhaps ‘geomorphological features collectively’; rare before early 19th cent.), French géologie (1751; 1779 in an influential use in H.-B. de Saussure Voyages dans les Alpes I. p. ii). Compare earlier geological adj.Post-classical Latin geologia was applied by the 14th-cent. philosopher Richard de Bury to the study of law, as distinguished from the arts and sciences which are concerned with the works of God. It is attested in a number of sources from the early 17th cent. onwards, in various senses (which are often difficult to determine) relating to the study of geographical or geological phenomena, although not in the modern sense 2a. For instance, the Jesuit missionary to China, Matteo Ricci, used geologia in a Latin account of geomantic practices in China in 1617 (a Spanish translation of this work appeared in 1621), and the Latin word also appears in the titles or texts of a number of works both in Britain (compare e.g. quots. 1661, 1690) and in continental Europe (compare e.g. quot. 1663, a translation of a Danish source published in Christiania in 1657; the source there cited deals with an earthquake, and also contains a description of the Icelandic volcano Hekla). The use of †giologia in Italian by the Renaissance scholar Ulisse Aldrovandi (in his will, which was not published until much later) is closer to sense 2a (the context is Giologia, ovvero de fossilibus ‘Geology, or concerning fossils’), but a direct connection between Aldrovandi's use and early uses of the English word in either sense 1 or sense 2a is unlikely, as Aldrovandi's use occurs in an unpublished source and almost certainly was not seen by other contemporary scholars. See further G. B. Vai Aldrovandi's Will: Introducing the Term ‘Geology’ in 1603, in G. B. Vai & W. Cavazza (eds.) Four Centuries of the Word Geology (2003) 64–115, especially 69–74. Italian geologia also occurs in 1687 as the title of a work by F. Sessa, intended to prove that the ‘influence’ ascribed by astrologers to the stars did in fact proceed from the earth itself, but this is a use not paralleled in English. Compare:1661 R. Lovell Πανζωορυκτολογια, sive Panzoologicomineralogia sig. a Geologia. Of Earths.1663 D. Collins tr. M. P. Escholt (title) Geologia Norvegica, or, A brief instructive remembrancer concerning that very great and spacious earthquake, which hapned almost quite through the south parts of Norway upon the 24th day of April..1657 [Da. Geologia Norvegica : Det er: En kort Undervisning om det viitbegrebne Jordskelff Som her udi Norge skeede mesten ofuer alt Syndenfields den 24. Aprilis udi nærværende Aar 1657].1690 E. Warren (title) Geologia: or, a discourse concerning the Earth before the Deluge.