English Word Families l Word Family in English about Politics- Learn ENGLISH about Word Families

welcome back to the english danny channel i'm  dr don and today i'm going to show you more ways  

to expand your vocabulary using word families  remember a word family is a set of words whose  

meaning comes from the meaning of one root word  for example if you know the meaning of help  

you can figure out the meaning of words  like helper helpless helpful and unhelpful  

today we're going to look at  three more common root words  

the theme for today's root words is politics  by the end of this lesson you will have a much  

better idea of how we think about politics and  political things in english let's go all three  

of the root words in today's lesson originally  started out as words in the ancient greek language  

and the first route is polis p-o-l-i-s from  which we get the word politics polis in greek  

originally means city and a city is probably  one of the first large political groupings  

of human beings that p-o-l-i root shows up in a  lot of other english words as i just said politics  

is a word built on this route and it means all of  the activities connected with ruling or governing  

not just a city but a community a nation any  large group of people is involved with politics  

from that root polis the french word  policy developed and policy means  

civil administration the administration  or running of the business of the city  

and from that french word we get the modern  english word policy spelled a little differently  

but pronounced almost the same and policy in  english means any course of action which has been  

followed or proposed by a government a business or  an individual the president has proposed several  

new policy changes that means changes in how the  government or the business will conduct itself  

from the root word polis we also get the word  police which originally meant public order  

inside the city now the word police means a civil  force of a government which is responsible for  

preventing or detecting crime and for maintaining  public order someone broke into my house so i  

called the police from polis we not only get the  word politic or politics we get the word impolitic  

and if we add the prefix i am meaning not to  politic we get an adjective meaning someone  

without social prudence someone who engages  in unwise public behavior it was impolitic  

to insult your boss that way here's one more  adjective coming from the root polis cosmopolitan  

cosmos means world and polis means city so  someone or something who is cosmopolitan means  

they include or contain people from all over  the world but could also mean a person who has  

a worldly sophistication they seem to be a citizen  of the world our second root word is arc a a-r-c-h  

which originally meant chief ruler or origin  building on this route we have the word monarch  

add the prefix mono meaning one to arc chief or  ruler and you get monarch a single person who  

rules a whole area a king a queen or an emperor  is an example of a monarch we also have the word  

patriarch so if we add the root word potter  meaning father we get father rule of the father  

or fatherly rule patriarch means the ruling father  or the male head of a family it could be a father  

or a grandfather such a person could be called  the patriarch of the family now here's another  

word building on the root anarchy can  you guess what that one means well  

and means without the prefix a-n it means without  so perhaps you can guess now that anarchy means an  

area without a ruler or government  anarchy is the absence of government  

but it can also mean a state of disorder caused  by lack of government we fell into a state of  

anarchy now here's a non-political  word that uses the ark root architect  

arc means chief and a techton is a builder so  the architect is the chief builder and this  

is about right because an architect in english  means a person who designs buildings and often  

supervises the construction of buildings as  well our third and final route word for today  

is govern originally kubernetes meant to steer a  boat and from this idea we got govern meaning to  

steer the city or the state to guide it the way  you would guide a ship safely across the sea this  

idea of the city or the state being like a boat on  the ocean that needs to be safely steered is very  

common in english thinking about what government  is for the word governor adds the suffix or which  

means a person who does an action so a governor  is a person who rules a person who governs others  

in the united states the head of the government  of one of our 50 states is called the governor  

the word government itself is of course  another word building on the root govern  

we add the suffix m e and t to indicate the action  of doing something or the result of an action  

so the act of ruling or the result of ruling is  involved with government and when we use the word  

government we mean a system which rules or governs  a city a state or any other large community  

another word using this root is governable  we add the suffix able meaning ability so  

governable is an adjective meaning something which  can be governed or steered and of course if we  

said ungovernable that would mean something  or someone who can't be governed or steered  

here's one more word using this root  misgovern can you guess what it means  

well here's a hint the mis prefix means wrong or  badly so to misgovern means to govern wrong or to  

govern badly the economy has been misgoverned  so badly that the city is without funds  

polis arkham govern those are three different  root words dealing with politics and rule from  

these words you can see that in english politics  is concerned with the things of the city with who  

is in charge who is the chief and with steering  things correctly steering them the way you  

might steer a ship and also because all three of  those words originally came from greek you could  

see that there was a strong influence of greek  political thought on english political thought  

now that you know these roots can  you guess what a word like politicize  

means how about hierarchy or governance  share your guesses and any questions or  

comments in the in the section below and  i hope to see you all in the next video