Words from Greek
16 words in Curio passed through Greek on their way into English.
About Greek
Independent Hellenic branch of the Indo-European language family · spoken today
Where
Greece and Cyprus, with historic communities across the Balkans, the Black Sea coast, the Caucasus and the Eastern Mediterranean
When
Speakers
13.2M
as of 2018
Speakers, Wikidata figure for 2018
Family path
- Greek
- LatinEtruscanGerman
- English
Where it came from
Greek is an Indo-European language that forms its own independent Hellenic branch within that family. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, with at least 3,400 years of written records. Before the Greek alphabet came into use about 2,800 years ago, it was written in Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary.
Source: Wikipedia
The words, A to Z
- bedlam
A word for total chaos that started life as the name of a hospital.
- bishop
A church official whose title once just meant someone keeping watch from above.
- catalogue
Behind every list you've ever flipped through is someone, long ago, counting things aloud.
- citrus
The tangy fruit family may share roots with a tree famous for its fragrant wood.
- cockroach
This bug's English name is the result of a Spanish word getting mistranslated by ear into two familiar English words that have nothing to do with it.
- colon
This word hides two unrelated bodies inside it — one made of verses, the other of viscera.
- diploma
That certificate you frame on the wall was once, quite literally, a piece of paper folded in half.
- leopard
This spotted cat's name is actually a fossil of an old zoological mix-up.
- monograph
A book that refuses to wander — it stays fixed on a single subject and nothing else.
- narcissism
There's a myth behind this word about someone who fell in love with a reflection and never looked away.
- pitcher
One word, two totally unrelated pasts — a thrower and a jug, sharing nothing but sound.
- rabbi
Tucked inside this title is a tiny, tender claim of belonging: 'mine.'
- scar
A mark left behind carries two old memories at once — one of a burn, one of a cut.
- silk
This word traveled so far along ancient trade routes that its true starting point got lost somewhere along the way.
- spartan
A word that borrows its backbone from a whole civilization known for going without.
- thespian
Every actor who's ever taken a bow owes their title to one man's stage name.