Catholic (term) Catholic (term) The word catholic (with lowercase "c"; derived via Late Latin "catholicus", from the Greek adjective ("katholikos"), meaning "universal") comes from the Greek phrase ("katholou"), meaning "on the whole", "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole". The term Catholic (usually written with uppercase "C" in English) was first used to describe the Christian Church in the early 2nd century to emphasize its universal scope. In the context of Christian ecclesiology, it has a rich history and several usages. The word in English can mean either "of
English words of Greek origin words like "metabolize", though composed of a Greek root and a Greek suffix, are modern compounds. Greek and English share many Indo-European cognates. In some cases, the cognates can be confused with borrowings. For example, the English "mouse" is cognate with Greek μῦς /mys/ and Latin "mūs", all from an Indo-European word "*mūs"; they are not borrowings. Similarly, "acre" is cognate to Latin "ager" and Greek αγρός, but not a borrowing; on the other hand, the prefix "agro-" is a borrowing from Greek, and the prefix "agri-" a borrowing from Latin. Many are used verbatim in English texts—"et cetera" ("etc."),