Today’s word, oology, refers to the study of eggs, especially bird’s eggs. It also covers the collecting of bird’s eggs and the study of their breeding habits, and their nests, a practice sometimes known as caliology.
Oology is sometimes written oölogy, comes from the Greek ōion, egg, plus ology, a back formation from words like biology.
I came across this word in Jasper Fforde’s wonderfully silly book The Big Over Easy, which centres around the mysterious death of Humpty Dumpty – did he fall or was he pushed?. Oologists are consulted during the investigation.
Long-time reader, first time commenter here.
Nice find with this word. I’m always interested in new words. One question though, what’s the correct English pronunciation?
David – oology is pronounced roughly “oh-ol–uh-jee” – /oʊˈɒl.ə.dʒi/ in the IPA . You can hear it pronounced here.
I think the word “oology” looks funny.
I wonder if it’ll be common for people to pronounce it as if it has three Os (the way “zoology” is often pronounced).