-nomycomb. form

Etymology: < ancient Greek -νομία (in e.g. ἀστρονομία astronomy n., οἰκονομία economy n.) < an ablaut variant (also seen in νόμος law: see nomos n.) of the base of νέμειν to deal, distribute, hold, manage (see nim v.) + -ία -y suffix³. Compare classical Latin -nomia, French -nomie, Italian nomia, Spanish -nomía, Portuguese -nomia, German -nomie.First recorded in loanwords, the earliest being astronomy n. (Middle English, immediately from Old French, from Latin) and economy n. (16th cent., from Latin); both ultimately from ancient Greek. On the model of such words, English formations are found from the 17th cent., such as pyronomy n. at pyro- comb. form 1, hipponomy n. at hippo- comb. form , idionomy n. at idio- comb. form . Later loanwords from French include taxonomy n. (early 19th cent.; a French coinage, with the sense ‘arrangement, classification’ also seen in ichthyonomy n. at ichthyo- comb. form ), and gastronomy n. (early 19th cent., from Hellenistic Greek). English formations have generally been specialized or short-lived, or both; more prominent examples are agronomy n. (early 19th cent.) and aeronomy n. (mid 20th cent.). A small number of words occur from the 16th cent. onwards in which the second element denotes ‘law’, ‘rule’, ‘government’, etc. (reflecting the legal sense of νόμος ), the earliest, borrowed from Greek, being autonomy n.; English formations include heteronomy n. (late 18th cent.), trinomy n.² (early 19th cent.), and theonomy n. (late 19th cent.).