Flower-gathering

A recent gift was the CD version of the Oxford Shorter English Dictionary. My friend Ann bought the books for her computer-less parents and gave the disk to me. Bliss! Now I can look up everything.

The word anthology comes from From Ancient Greek ἀνθολογία, which mean "flower-gathering." 

The flowers, anthos,   refer to the stories.  The OED says that the logy part comes from the Greek logos,  meaning account, relation, ratio, reason(ing), argument, discourse, saying, speech, word; and that it is related to to legein choose, collect, gather, say. This reassured me, as I was afraid that it perhaps referred to the noun "logy," meaning "dull and heavy in motion or thought."

Much better to be gathering the flowers of discourse!