You might have a temperature control on a wall in your home to control

the heating system but, although it's probably marked in degrees, it's not
a thermometer. It's called a thermostat, a modern word based on two ancient
Greek ones:thermo (meaning heat) and statos (which means standing and is
related to words like stasis, status quo, and staticmeaning to stay the same).
We can tell just from its name that a thermostat is something that "keeps heat
the same": when our home is too cold, the thermostat switches on the heating
so things quickly warm up; once the temperature reaches the level we've set,
the thermostat switches the heating off so we don't boil.