Prefix · temperature · cold
Means "cold" or "freezing": cryogenic, cryotherapy, cryonics, cryopreservation.
Written by Bryan López, English teacher · Updated
Cryo- comes from Greek "kryos" (cold, ice) and appears in scientific and medical vocabulary. Cryogenic = producing extreme cold; cryotherapy = treatment using cold; cryonics = the practice of freezing bodies to preserve them; cryopreservation = preservation by freezing. Spanish equivalent "crio-": criogénico, crioterapia, criogenia, criopreservación.
Cryo- is more present than ever in modern life: athletes use cryotherapy chambers to recover faster; sperm banks use cryopreservation to store samples for decades; liquid nitrogen is stored in cryogenic tanks; and cryosurgery freezes and destroys abnormal tissue. The cryosphere (Earth's permanently frozen zones) is also critical to climate science.
Combines with Greek and Latin roots in scientific and medical vocabulary:
Pronunciation: /ˈkraɪ.oʊ/ — the y sounds like /aɪ/ as in "pie". Spanish equivalent "crio-": criogénico (cryogenic), crioterapia (cryotherapy), criopreservación (cryopreservation), criosfera (cryosphere).
cryo-/ˈkraɪ.oʊ/
Tap the button to hear how the prefix sounds. Each word in the table has its own audio.
"Cryonics" (cryo- + -nics = practice/technique): the speculative and controversial practice of preserving human bodies at cryogenic temperatures. "Cryogenics" (cryo- + -genics = science): the physics of matter at extremely low temperatures. The science is cryogenics; the speculative practice of freezing people is cryonics.
A trick to remember it
Cryo- = cold, freezing. Spanish equivalent "crio-": criogénico (cryogenic), crioterapia (cryotherapy), criopreservación (cryopreservation). The y is pronounced /aɪ/ like "pie".
Exercise 1 · Form the word
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
What does cryogenics study?
The prefix cryo- means "cold" or "freezing": cryogenic, cryotherapy, cryonics, cryopreservation. In Spanish it usually maps to cryo- / crio-.
The prefix cryo- is pronounced /ˈkraɪ.oʊ/. For example, "cryogenic".
"genic" becomes "cryogenic". It is a typical example of the cryo- prefix.
un-, re-, pre-, dis-, over-, in-... every beginning you need to unlock thousands of English words at once.