Prefix · people / population
From Greek "demos" (people): appears in words about society and population, like democracy and demography.
Written by Bryan López, English teacher · Updated
Demo- comes from the Greek demos, which means "people" or "citizens". It connects words from politics, statistics and public health. In classical Athens, "the demos" was the group of citizens who took part in government.
Epidemic and pandemic both have demos inside, because they describe a disease spreading among the people. Democracy, demography and demagogue use the same root. If you spot demos in a word, you can nearly always say how it connects to a population or to the people as a whole.
Demo- combines with Greek roots to describe things related to people and populations:
"Pandemic" (pan- = all + demos) is a worldwide epidemic; "endemic" (en- = within + demos) describes a disease permanently established in a specific region or group.
demo-/ˈdem.oʊ/
Tap the button to hear how the prefix sounds. Each word in the table has its own audio.
"Democracy" is political, but "demography" is scientific and "epidemic" is medical. All share the same Greek root meaning the people, but the fields they describe are very different.
A trick to remember it
Demo- = people. Anchor it with "democracy" (rule by the people) and "epidemic" (disease upon the people), and you have the core meaning. This single Greek root unlocks vocabulary across politics, social science, and public health.
Exercise 1 · Form the word
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
A disease that has spread across every continent and affects populations worldwide is called a ___.
The prefix demo- from Greek "demos" (people): appears in words about society and population, like democracy and demography.
The prefix demo- is pronounced /ˈdem.oʊ/. For example, "democracy".
"cracy" becomes "democracy". It is a typical example of the demo- prefix.
un-, re-, pre-, dis-, over-, in-... every beginning you need to unlock thousands of English words at once.