It's ALL Greek to Me...Really!

ABC Wednesday is a word meme with participants from around the world. This fabulous meme was created and hosted by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt who hails from Great Britain. Over time, others have joined in to help host this wonderful and informative meme. We are now in our TENTH round! Some of the participants have been with this from the very first round; others have joined in along the way. Each week we are taken across the globe to see the varied and exciting contributions people have taken the time to discover and capture. We start with the letter, "A" and each week we post something in regards to the next letter of the alphabet. This week's letter is, "X".

XENOBIOSIS

(image from: http://www.amentsoc.org/insects/glossary/terms/xenobiosis)

It would seem that we have all exhausted all the "X" possibilities! I had to drag out that BIG dictionary that I own-the one that I use more often as a weight to flatten out things with rather than as a dictionary!

xenobiosis (from the on line encyclopedia, Encyclo): a form of symbiosis among ants in which two colonies of different species live together on friendly terms without rearing their broods in common.


But, this 'xeno' word is kind of fascinating now that I've dug in to it. We know that xenophibia is a hatred of strangers or foreigners. The word, 'xeno' is Greek and means, stranger, foreign, a stranger.
Xenodocheum is a building (from the Middle Ages) for the reception of strangers, care of the sick. The plural of that word is: xenodochea  and xenodochia.
Xenodochy is the same thing.
Xenogamy (in botany) refers to cross fertilization (xenos, Gr. for strange and gamos, marriage).
Xenogenesis: spontaneous generation; abiogenesis.
Xenogenous: caused by a foreign body or originating outside the organism.

OK, so now we get to a word that I've used before: xenolith: a rock fragment embedded in the mass of another rock.

Wow. I had no idea about this 'xeno' thing! I guess you could say that it's all Greek to me! (sorry....)