C One of the quickest and most effective ways to improve your vocabulary is by learning to recognize the most common Latin and Greek roots, since any one of them can help you define a number of English words. Whenever you come upon an unfamiliar word, first check to see if it has a recognizable root. If you know that the Latin root "ami" for example, means like or love, you can easily figure out that "amiable" means pleasant, friendly and "amorous" means loving. Even ff you cannot define a word exactly, recognizing the root will still give you a general idea of the word’s meaning. Remembering that the Greek root "geo" means earth would certainly help you define "geophysics" as the physics of the earth, but it also might help you figure out that "geocentric" has to do with the center of the earth or with the earth as a center. Begin by studying the following lists of common Latin and Greek roots and representative words.