The building blocks of English

Affixes

gloss(o)-

Also glott(o)‑.

The tongue; speech or language.

Greek glōssa or glōtta, tongue.

Some examples are medical terms, such as glossitis, inflammation of the tongue, and glossodynia (Greek odunē, pain), pain in it. The adjective glossopharyngeal refers to a nerve that controls both the tongue and pharynx. The glottis is the part of the larynx that contains the vocal cords.

A second group refers to a function of the tongue, the power of speech or language, for example glossolalia, the ability apparently to speak in unknown languages; glottochronology, the use of statistical techniques to date when languages diverged from their common sources; a glossary is an alphabetical list with brief explanations of terms used in a special field.