-glot

The combining form -glot is used like a suffix meaning “having a tongue.” The meaning of tongue here is often metaphorical, as in “language.” This is how -glot comes to mean “speaking, writing, or written in a language.” It is occasionally used in technical terms.

The form -glot comes from Greek -glottos, meaning “tongued.” The Latin translation is lingua, “tongue,” which is the source of words such as linguistic and bilingual. Find out more at our entries for both words.

What are variants of -glot?

While not variants of -glot, the combining forms gloss-, glosso-, and glotto- are used as prefixes to mean “tongue, word, speech.” Want to know more? Read our Words That Use articles for these forms.

An example of a word you may have encountered that features -glot is polyglot, “able to speak or write several languages; multilingual.” Polyglot comes from Greek polýglōttos, which features the equivalent form of -glot in the language.

While -glot means “speaking in a language,” the poly- portion means “much, many,” from Greek polýs. Polyglot literally translates to “speaking many languages.”

What are some words that use the combining form -glot?

• diglot
• monoglot

What are some other forms that -glot may be commonly confused with?

• -glossia
• -gon
• -log
• -logy

Not every word that begins with the exact letters -glot, such as giglot, is necessarily using the combining form -glot to denote “tongued.” Learn why giglot, or giglet, means “a giddy girl” at our entry for the word.

The combining form mono- means “single” or “one.” With this in mind, what does monoglot mean?