The 2,000-Year-Old+ Story Behind the Word "Odyssey"

Today, you might describe any great or wide-ranging tale as an odyssey. You might call any long, complex, or exhausting journey—whether literal or figurative—an odyssey too. Or indeed any kind of immense undertaking, grand adventure, or wide-ranging quest-like enterprise might likewise also be described as an odyssey. 

All these uses of the word emerged in English in the 19th century, when the name of the famous Greek poet Homer’s epic, Odyssey, first began to be used more figuratively in our language. Homer’s Odyssey, from which all these others have since taken their name, is believed to have been written sometime in the 7th century BC, give or take a few decades. Consisting of 24 verse chapters, or books, the work relays the extraordinary adventures of the legendary hero Odysseus as he journeys home from fighting in the Trojan War and the fall of the city of Troy. 

Odysseus’ Journey

Although Odysseus’ journey takes ten years, the Odyssey picks up halfway through his homeward voyage, and we essentially join the plot with him stranded and held captive (as he has been for several years already) on the island of the sea nymph Calypso. As a result, the actual action in the poem only covers the last month or so of his homecoming, with the rest of the action told partly through Odysseus’ reminiscences. 

Nevertheless, Homer’s poem still manages to encompass all the wild and wonderful events of his journey—including a trip into the Underworld, a battle with a Cyclops, an encounter with a sorceress, a narrow escape from some giant cannibals, some monstrously alluring Sirens, and a treacherous whirlpool. Eventually, Odysseus arrives home to Ithaca, only to find his household full of more than 100 unwanted suitors looking to take his place in the royal household as the husband of his devoted queen, Penelope. After seeing off his rivals in a suitably bloody fashion, Odysseus reveals his true identity to his wife and the couple are at long last reunited. 

Odysseus is the King of Ithaca in Homer’s epic poem, who became embroiled in the Trojan War as one of the suitors-turned-protectors of Helen of Troy. Initially reluctant to join the conflict (due to a prophecy predicting his long journey home), he is eventually compelled to join the Greek fleet, leave Ithaca and his queen and young son behind him, and embark on one of the most epic character journeys in ancient literature.

And as a result, it is from his name that the Odyssey itself takes its title. But where does the name Odysseus in turn come from? 

The Story Behind the Word "Odyssey"

Etymologists and historians have long puzzled over the meaning or true interpretation of Odysseus’ name and consequently the literal meaning of the poem that shares it. Not helping matters is the fact that there are variant forms of it found across the different dialects of Ancient Greece, as well as the fact that it appears to be particularly ancient (and potentially even Pre-Greek), meaning its roots even more hazily lost to the mists of time. 

Perhaps the most likely theory, however, is that Odysseus is somehow connected to an Ancient Greek word literally meaning “to hate” (a meaning which Homer himself seems to play on in the text), which would make it a distant relative of similar words such as odium and odious. Quite why such a major character would have gained such an unpleasant name is another puzzle, but Odysseus has nonetheless been interpreted as implying that he was “hated by gods and men,” as the Oxford English Dictionary puts it, in light of his reputation as a hubristic trickster, with a fondness for using cunning and deceptiveness rather than bravery or strength. 

The epic Odyssey, ultimately, could be seen as something of an antihero’s, rather than a hero’s, grand journey home. 

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