In the beginning, Chaos came to be. And then, everything else. Every name in this story is still hiding inside English words.
Hesiod’s Theogony · C1
Part Two: Chaos, Earth and Love
Greek roots in English (chaos, geo-, aether, hēmera, ouranos, hyper-, mnēmē, kyklos, gonia, chronos): C1 vocabulary building from the very first lines of the Theogony.
🌍 Play the story too: in the gamebook, you are Gaia, the Earth.Play the gamebook →
SOPHIA
PHILO
Then every line is a vocabulary lesson.
The story
After Hesiod’s Theogony, lines 116–210
First came Chaos, a yawning gap; then Gaia, the Earth; misty Tartarus; and Eros, the most beautiful of the gods. From Chaos came Erebos and Night; from Night came Aether, the bright upper air, and Day.
Gaia bore Ouranos, the starry Sky, equal to herself; then the mountains and Pontos, the sea. With Ouranos she bore the Titans: Oceanus, Hyperion, Mnemosyne and the others, and last of all Kronos. Then the one-eyed Cyclopes and the three Hundred-Handers.
But Ouranos hid his children in the depths of the Earth, and Gaia groaned with pain.
First of all, Chaos came to be.
Names that became words
MARCOS
Chaos → chaotic. Gē → geology. Ouranos → Uranus. Easy!
SOPHIA
Yes. Many English words are built from Greek roots: geo- (earth), -logy (study), hyper- (over), chrono- (time), cyclo- (circle). Knowing the root helps you guess new words.
Look-alikes and traps
DEMETRIA
Chronos, time, and Kronos, the Titan, are different! And sickle isn’t from kyklos.
SOPHIA
Exactly. Similar-looking words can have different roots: ethereal (aether) vs eternal (Latin), mnemonic vs monogram. Check before you guess.
Day and memory
PHILO
Ephemeral hides hēmera, day. And mnemonic and amnesia both hide memory.
SOPHIA
Good, Philo. ephemeral = lasting a day, very short-lived. mnemonic = a memory aid (silent m). cosmogony = a story of the origin of the world.
Sophia’s summary
| Form | Use | From the story |
|---|---|---|
| geo- (earth), -logy (study) | Greek roots | geology, geography |
| hyper- (over) / hypo- (under) | prefixes | hyperactive, hypothermia |
| chrono- (time), cyclo- (circle) | roots | chronic, cycle |
| ephemeral, ethereal, mnemonic | C1 words from Greek | an ephemeral fashion |
| cosmogony, cosmology | origin vs study of the cosmos | Hesiod’s cosmogony |
Practice
Answer all the questions, then press “Check my answers”. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · Choose
Choose the correct form.
1. My room is completely ___.
2. ___ is the study of rocks and the earth.
3. Fame on social media is often ___: here today, gone tomorrow.
4. A ___ is a trick to help you remember.
5. Hyper- means…
6. A story of how the universe began is a ___.
B · Write
Write the correct form of the word in brackets, or the missing word.
7. Her singing had an , almost unearthly beauty. (aether)
8. He suffers from a illness that never goes away. (chronos)
9. A storm that spins in a circle is a . (kyklos)
10. Hypothermia: hypo- means .
C · Right or wrong?
Is it correct?
11. “Sickle comes from the Greek word for circle.”
12. “Saturn is the Roman name for Kronos.”
13. “The first m in mnemonic is pronounced.”
Now play Part Two yourself!Play the gamebook →