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An anadromous fish is
born in fresh water, heads downriver to the sea, where it spends most of its
life, and then goes back up to fresh water to
spawn. Salmon, smelt, and sturgeon are common examples. As for its etymology,
here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary has to offer: < Greek ἀνάδρομος running up (a
river) < ἀνά [ana] up + δρόμος
[dromos] running + -ous suffix.
A catadromous fish
does the opposite. It lives in fresh water and goes back down to salt water to spawn. Most of the eels are catadromous. The OED has
this: < Greek κατάδρομος
< κατά [kata] down + -δρομος
[dromos] running + -ous suffix.
It’s not a fish, but
the dromedary shares the same root. It’s a lighter and quicker breed of camel
that will get you to your destination faster. As a combining form, -drome often means a racecourse, and
it shows up in hippodrome (horses), aerodrome (airplanes), palindrome
(reading the same backwards and forwards), and syndrome (several symptoms
running together in a disease).
Several other running words are not very common:
·
dromomania:
an excessive love of jogging
·
dromometer:
an old medical instrument for measuring the speed of blood flow
·
dromoscope:
an old instrument to measure the speed of a train or other vehicle
·
dromotropic:
affecting the passage of nervous impulses through the muscles of the heart
·
dromophobia:
fear of, or aversion to, running
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