Heard spelling

androekum

Spelled androecium. two changes at once

Where does the k in androekum come from?

From the Greek. Oikos began with a kappa, and anyone reading the word back through its origin rather than through its English pronunciation reaches for a hard k.

Botanical English took the Latin route instead. Kappa became c, and the i behind it turned that c soft. So the standard sound is an s and the standard letter is a c, which agrees with neither the Greek nor the ear. Androekum is a classical reading of a word that stopped being classical several centuries ago.

Say

an-DREE-see-um

Letters

A-N-D-R-O-E-C-I-U-M