hodos

Hodos (plural hodoi) is the Greek noun ὁδός, meaning “way,” “path,” or “road.” In English usage it functions as a root in various scientific and linguistic terms and appears in both classical and biblical Greek texts. In Koine Greek, ὁδός is used literally for a physical road and metaphorically for a way of life or course of action.

As a productive root, hodos appears in terms that denote pathways or conduits. In neuroscience and anatomy, hodology is the study of neural pathways and connectivity, focusing on how information travels through the nervous system. In geometry and physics, hodograph—an older term formed from the same root—refers to the curve traced by a moving body’s velocity vector, i.e., its path in velocity space.

In Christian antiquity, the word is associated with the phrase “the Way” (often rendered as hodos in Greek manuscripts), a designation used to identify early Christian communities and their way of life or teaching.

Related terms and concepts include hodology and hodograph, both built from the same Greek root. The word hodos thus serves as a linguistic foundation for describing routes, channels, and trajectories across disciplines.