References to the Greek myths are more common in the English language than might be expected, with some of the most familiar of English words having their origins in names of legendary Greek characters. Morphine, for instance, derives its name from Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams; the adjective erotic literally pertains to the Greek god of love, Eros; and even calypso music shares its name with that of a wily sea nymph in Homer’s Odyssey. Similarly, expressions such as a Herculean task and an Achilles heel date back many centuries in the language, with Chaucer referencing the ‘strengthe of Ercules’ in The Book of the Duchess written c.1369, and a medical textbook of 1703 describing ‘That String . . . call’d the Tendon of Achilles, because, ’tis said, he dy’d of a Wound in that Part’. Perhaps the most familiar of all such words, however, is atlas, which derives from the name of the brother of Prometheus in Greek legend who was believed to support the heavens on his shoulders and so was often depicted holding the earth on the cover of early books containing maps of the world.
The term aphrodisiac has been used in English since the early eighteenth century to describe anything that increases or elicits sexual desire. Derived from a similar term used in Ancient Greek, the word literally pertains to the goddess Aphrodite, who was the embodiment of love, beauty and desire in Greek myth. The mother of Eros, Aeneas and the Three Graces, Aphrodite is described as the daughter of Zeus and Dione in Homer’s Iliad, who was said to have been born from the spray and spume of the sea near Paphos in Cyprus; her name is believed to come from the Greek word aphros, meaning ‘foam’.
Patented by the American inventor Joshua C. Stoddard in Massachusetts in 1855, the calliope is a steam-powered organ, a musical instrument played by keyboard which operates by forcing steam through a series of pitched whistles to produce an unusually airy and strikingly loud sound. Stoddard took the name of his invention from that of the muse of epic poetry in Greek mythology, Calliope, whose name literally means ‘beautiful-voiced’.
Dating from the sixteenth century, the adjective daedal is a rare English word, meaning ‘skilful’ or ‘crafty’, which is derived ultimately from the same root as that of Daedalus, the name of a skilled craftsman from Greek mythology. The father of Icarus, Daedalus is known for designing and constructing the Labyrinth for the Cretan King Minos, who imprisoned the Minotaur inside. According to one story, Minos had been given a glorious white bull to sacrifice by the sea god Poseidon, but kept the bull for himself. In revenge, Poseidon conspired with Aphrodite, the goddess of desire, to have Minos’s wife Pasiphaë fall in love with the creature, and ultimately give birth to the monstrous Minotaur. Horrified, Minos demanded that Daedalus create a vast maze from which the creature would never escape.
According to Greek mythology, Echo was the name of a beautiful young mountain nymph who was punished by the goddess Hera for helping to conceal her husband Zeus’s dalliances with the other nymphs by having her voice removed, leaving her only able to senselessly repeat the words of others. The story concludes with Echo falling in love with the handsome young Narcissus, but when he shuns her advances she flees in tears, eventually pining away into nothingness to leave only her voice behind. Her name has been used metaphorically to refer to the repetition or reverberation of a sound since the fourteenth century.
Defined as an organism possessing both male and female sexual organs, the term hermaphrodite dates from the early sixteenth century in English and derives from the name of the mythological character Hermaphroditus. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Hermaphroditus was a handsome young man who was so utterly loved by the water nymph Salmacis that she longed to become entirely united with him, and so the pair were merged into a single androgynous being possessing both male and female attributes. Appropriately, even Hermaphroditus’s name is a mixture of those of both his parents, Hermes and Aphrodite.
A type of four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage dating from the mid-1700s, the phaeton takes its name from that of the son of Clymene and Helios, the god of the sun, in Greek mythology. According to the legend, Phaeton attempted to drive his father’s flaming sun-chariot across the sky but could not control it and crashed, leaving much of the earth below ablaze (although in another version of the story, Zeus kills Phaeton with a thunderbolt before he can cause any more damage). On its first appearance in the language in the late 1500s, Phaeton was used as another name for both a reckless or irresponsible driver and for an impetuous or destructive youth.
As the name of a type of a large tropical snake, the word python dates from the early 1800s in English, but as the name of a monstrous creature from Greek mythology it is found as far back as the fourteenth century. According to the myth, the Python was a huge, serpent-like dragon that presided over the oracle of Delphi. Eventually slain by the hero Apollo, the Python’s remains were left to decay at Delphi in order to mark the spot where the monster had been killed – the word itself is related to the Greek word pythein, meaning ‘to rot’.
Use of the word siren to describe an alarm or warning sound dates from the mid-nineteenth century in English, although the term itself derives from the Sirens of Greek mythology. Famously described in Homer’s Odyssey, the Sirens were monstrous, murderous creatures that lured sailors to their doom on the rocks around their islands with their enchanting voices and music. Often portrayed as winged, reptilian women, or else as monstrous birds with women’s heads, the name Siren is believed to be derived from the Greek word seira, meaning a ‘bind’ or ‘cord’.
Used since the early nineteenth century to mean to ‘tease’ or ‘entice’, the word tantalize in fact dates back to the late sixteenth century in English when it was originally used in a less desirable sense to refer to a kind of torment in which a person would be offered or shown something that would then be taken away. The word derives from the character of Tantalus in Greek mythology who was punished for having committed a series of terrible sins: in one story, he was invited to dine with Zeus on Mount Olympus but stole the gods’ food and drink and shared their secrets with his friends, whilst in another tale he murdered his son Pelops and cooked his body in a great cauldron to serve to the gods at a sacrificial feast. For his crimes, Tantalus was imprisoned in the deepest realm of the Underworld, Tartarus, where he was cursed to stand beneath a huge fruit tree surrounded by a pool of clear water, but every time he tried to take fruit from the branches or drink the water from the pool, it would be drawn back out of his reach. As well as the verb tantalize, Tantalus’s name has also been used in English since the late 1800s to refer to a small drinks stand containing a series of bottles or decanters that, although clearly visible, are in fact locked in place.
A relatively uncommon term nowadays, the odd word terp was a popular slang term used in theatrical circles in the first half of the twentieth century. Referring to a chorus girl or professional stage dancer, the word is a shortened form of the much earlier adjective terpsichorean, meaning ‘pertaining to dancing’, which is in turn taken from the name of the Greek muse of dance, Terpsichore, whose name literally means ‘enjoyment of dancing’.