Author Topic: Thermo?  (Read 249 times)

Colhad75

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Thermo?
« on: January 30, 2023, 02:33:41 AM »
I'd have thought on its own Thermo would be considered a word.

According to the Collins Dictionary the definition is....

ADJECTIVE [ADJECTIVE noun]
Thermo means using or relating to heat.
The main thermo power station in the area has been damaged.
Thermo is also a combining form.

Any thoughts, it's currently not allowed in Chihuahua.
...the dangers of thermo-nuclear war

Colhad75

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Re: Thermo?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2023, 02:39:05 AM »
But then it accepts "Therm".

Maudland

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Re: Thermo?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2023, 04:16:14 AM »
I’d have thought thermo- was only used as a prefix rather than on its own - ? And therm is a unit of measurement, so it makes sense that’s allowed. Happy to be corrected though - I’m no scientist!

Jacki

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Re: Thermo?
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2023, 12:53:12 PM »
Have to concur with Maudland, but then I only learnt the word THERM from Chihuahua so I’m a scientific dunderhead. It does sound like a prefix to me.
Late blooming azaleas tricked by the warmer weather into flowering

Alan W

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Re: Thermo?
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2023, 04:12:40 PM »
My first thought also was that thermo is almost always used as a prefix, rather than a standalone adjective. But then I once thought that about cyber, but eventually came to accept it as a word that ought to be in our list. Likewise uber.

It looks like the Collins is the only dictionary listing thermo as a word in its own right.

Many of the usage examples I found are proper names, with a capital T, especially a company called Thermo Fisher. Nevertheless, the word is being used in lower case for a variety of situations: "Motorcycle thermo gloves"; "thermo responsive gelatin polymer hydrogel"; "The start-up says that its built-in thermo alarm can wake up users gradually by changing the temperature of the bed"; "truck drivers are to have their temperature taken at designated weighbridges and border points using thermo guns provided by the Ministry of Health"; and so on. In most of these cases the more familiar word thermal would probably have done just as well, but there's no law against using different words for the same thing.

One usage that had me puzzled was in book titles such as Everyday Thermo Cooking, Thermo-Struck: The Easiest Cookbook for All Thermo Appliances with Over 200 Amazing Recipes and - another cookbook - Thermo Love, by The Australian Women's Weekly. It seems the thermo cooker is a new kind of kitchen appliance. But surely all cooking involves heat. The Australian Choice website describes one of these products:

Quote
Billed as 10 appliances in one with 10 different speeds, the Aldi Stirling Thermo Cooker claims to mix, emulsify, knead, sauté, stir, puree, smoothie, crush, steam and mill and has an in-built scale to weigh out ingredients.

From what I can work out, these are cheaper alternatives to the branded Thermomix, but to evade trademark issues, they've dropped the "mix" from the product name.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, thermo is creeping into the language, and I'll add it to our list as a rare word.
Alan Walker
Creator of Lexigame websites

Colhad75

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Re: Thermo?
« Reply #5 on: February 05, 2023, 12:10:07 AM »
Our English language is changing all the time.