(also tekno-), repr. Gr. τεκνο-, combining form of τέκνον child (as in τεκνογόνος bearing children, etc.); used in Eng. in a few rare technical words, ǁ Tecnoctonia (Gr. -κτόνος murderer], child-murder, infanticide. ǁ Tecnogonia [Gr. γονή generation), † (a) the age of a father at his eldest child’s birth; (b) child-bearing, pregnancy. Tecnology [-LOGY], the scientific study of children; pædology. Tecnonymy, tek- [Gr. ὅνομα, ὅνυμα name), the practice among certain peoples of naming a parent from his or her child; so Tecnonymous (tek-) a., practising tecnonymy.
1857. Dunglison, Med. Lex., *Tecnoctonia.
a. 1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., 178. Partly by adding 100 Years to that *Technogonia of the Patriarchs before Abraham, have made the Period larger by 884 Years.
1860. Mayne, Expos. Lex., Tecnogonia.
1857. Dunglison, Med. Lex., *Tecnology..., a treatise on children.
1899. Syd. Soc. Lex., Tecnology, the study or scientific knowledge of childhood.
1888. E. B. Tylor, in Jrnl. Anthrop. Inst. (1889), Feb., 248. Another custom … is the practice of naming the parent from the child…. There are above thirty peoples spread over the earth who thus name the father, and, though less often, the mother. They may be called, coining a name for them, *teknonymous peoples. When beginning to notice the wide distribution of this custom of *teknonymy [etc.].
1888. Athenæum, 1 Dec., 740/1. Another custom, here called teknonymy [by Dr. E. B. Tylor]…; as an example was mentioned the name of Ra-Mary, or Father of Mary, by which Moffat was generally known in Africa.
