‘Phil’ in Greek means love. So it can be used as a prefix or a suffix with other words, most of which have their root in Greek only. If ‘phil’ is used as a prefix then normally the word meaning  will be like ‘love for _____’ where the dash represents the meaning of that word which has been used along with ‘phil’.

When a suffix,  ‘phil’ is used by two ways. When the suffix  is ‘phile’ then  the word refers to a ‘person who loves _____’. If the suffix is ‘philia’ then the word refers to the ‘love for _____’.

1. Philalethist – lover of truth. ‘Leth’ is the word used for ‘truth’.

2. Philanthropy- Love for mankind. One who helps other people is called a philanthrop. The root word is ‘anthro’ which means mankind.

3. Philocaly – love of beauty. So anyone who has love for beauty is called a philocalist.

4. Philogyny – love of women. The word root here is ‘Gynae’ which is used for ‘women’.

5. Philomath – lover of learning. ‘Math’ in Greek means to learn. So a Philomath is a person who has love for learning.

6. Philonoist – one who seeks knowledge

7. Philosophy- Love for wisdom. The root word is  ‘soph’ which means wisdom.

8. Philotherianism – love of animals. So the ones who cares for animals practices philotherianism. E.g. the people who work at WWF(World Wildlife Fund) are philotherianists.

9. Psychrophilic – thriving in cold temperatures. This term is used for some living things which can survive under very cold conditions.

10. Sarcophilous – fond of flesh. The root of the word comes from ‘sarc’ which means flesh. This term is mainly used for carnivorous animals or human beings which mainly eat flesh of other organisms.

The post is contributed by Archit Sehgal