-graphcomb. form

The Greek termination was used to form adjectives, sometimes in the passive sense of ‘written’, e.g. αὐτόγραϕος written with one's own hand, χειρόγραϕος written with the hand; sometimes in the active sense, ‘that writes, delineates, or describes’, chiefly used absol. as nouns, ‘one who writes, delineates, or describes’: e.g. ζωγράϕος a painter from life, βιβλιογράϕος a writer of books, γεωγράϕος a delineator of the earth, a geographer. Many of the passive formations in -γραϕος have been anglicized, being for the most part used both as adjectives and nouns, as in autograph, chirograph, holograph. These words have been imitated in a few modern nouns formed on Greek types, as lithograph, photograph; and these in turn have been imitated in hybrid formations, such as pictograph; jocular nonce-words, like hurrygraph for ‘a hurried sketch’, are occasionally met with. The Greek active formations in -γράϕος, where they have been anglicized, take in modern English the ending -grapher comb. form, which is used also for new formations denoting persons (exceptions, such as calligraph, are rare). The great bulk of the words in -graph is composed of technical terms of very recent invention, mostly formed on Greek elements, and expressing the general sense of ‘that which writes, portrays, or records’, as actinograph, heliograph, hygrograph, ideograph, phonograph, seismograph, telegraph, etc.