15 Words Derived From Mythological Creatures—From “Money” to “Cereal”

As the first month of the year, January somewhat appropriately takes its name from the Roman god Janus, who was associated with entrances, doorways, gates, and beginnings. Typically depicted with two faces, Janus looked backwards into the year just gone and simultaneously forwards into the year ahead. 

But January isn’t the only character from the myths and theologies of ancient Greece and Rome to have ended up immortalized in our daily lives and in our dictionaries. 15 more words we owe to the Greeks and Romans are explored here. 

1. APHRODISIAC 
2. AURORA 
3. CEREAL 
4. HECTOR 
5. HYACINTH 
6. JOVIAL 
7. MENTOR 
8. MONEY 
9. MORPHINE 
10. MUSIC 
11. NARCISSIST 
12. NEMESIS 
13. PANIC 
14. TANTALIZE 
15. VOLCANO 

APHRODISIAC 

Arousing aphrodisiacs take their name from the Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. It was Aphrodite, too, who also fell in love with the beautiful youth Adonis, giving us a byword for a handsome man, while her son with the god Hermes, Hermaphroditus, is the origin of the word hermaphrodite. 

AURORA 

Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn, whose origins are thought to lie even further back in the ancient Indo-European cultures of Europe and western Asia. As the early-morning bringer of daily light, Aurora’s name later came to be attached to the famous dawn-like phenomenon of swirling colored arches of light that appear in the night sky at high and low latitudes. 

CEREAL 

Ceres was an early Roman goddess of agriculture, whose particular responsibility for the crops that provide us with food gave us the word cereal. 

HECTOR 

Hector is the gallant son of King Priam in Homer’s Iliad, who is typically portrayed as the epitome of the loyal elder son, ideal husband to his wife Andromache and son, and the lead soldier of Troy. Quite how such a heroic character’s name has come to be used as a verb meaning to harangue or intimidate is debatable.

Some sources suggest it is his bold encouragement of his fellow Trojan soldiers that is the missing link here, but others point to a more recent origin—namely, gangs of intimidating youths known as “Hectors” who roamed 17th-century London. 

HYACINTH 

Hyacinth is said to have been a beautiful young man who was struck on the head and killed while the god Apollo taught him how to throw a discus. (According to some versions of the tale, the discus was deliberately blown off course by the god of the west wind, Zephyrus, in a fit of jealousy.) The flower that now bears his name is said to have sprung from the ground where his blood touched the earth. 

JOVIAL 

Jove was a poetic byname for both the thunderbolt-wielding Roman god of the sky, Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus), and the planet now named after him. The astrological belief that the position of the planets on a person’s birth could influence their character led to the adjective derived from Jove, jovial, being used of someone who is fun-loving or good-natured.

The characteristic gloominess of those born under the planet named after Jupiter’s father, Saturn, meanwhile, is the origin of the adjective saturnine, meaning melancholic or morose. 

MENTOR 

As another word for a wise advisor or counsellor, mentor comes from the name of a character from the Greek myths of Odysseus and his son Telemachus. According to at least one version of his story, Mentor (who is sometimes said to have been the goddess Athena in disguise) is an old sage and friend of Odysseus whom Odysseus requests act as guardian and advisor to his son, Telemachus, while he is away fighting in the Trojan War. 

MONEY 

Both money and the coin-producing mint where it is made take their names from Juno Moneta, an epithet for the Roman goddess Juno specifically associated with an ancient temple erected in her honor on Rome’s Capitoline Hill. The temple later housed the city’s mint, where Roman currency was made, and as a result, her name came to be associated with cash flow and monetary production. 

MORPHINE 

The sleep-inducing qualities of morphine led to its discoverer, the German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner, giving it a name derived from Morpheus, an ancient god of dreams. Morpheus is said to have been one of the three sons of the sleep god Hypnos, or Somnus, who, along with his brothers, were responsible for the nightly visions we see when we dream; Morpheus’s name, ultimately, literally means “maker of shapes.”

MUSIC 

The Muses were nine sister goddesses in the ancient world, each of whom was seen as presiding over and providing inspiration in a different field of the arts or sciences: Clio (history), Euterpe (music), Thalia (comedy), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dancing), Erato (lyric poetry), Polymnia (sacred poetry), Urania (astronomy), and Calliope (epic poetry).

Some of their names have gone on to inspire words relating to their artistic field, such as terpsichorean (relating to dancing) and thalian (comic, comedic). But the names of the Muses as a whole are the origin of both music (which was once a far more general term, relating to any musical, poetic, or artistic field), and a museum where creative works might be collected or displayed. 

NARCISSIST 

Another character from mythology whose name inspired that of a flower was the beautiful Greek youth Narcissus, who pined away by the side of a mountain spring, having become enraptured by his own reflection in its waters. The narcissus flower (better known as a daffodil) is said to have sprung from the earth where he died—while Narcissus’s fascination with his own beauty gave us a word for someone who is similarly obsessed with their appearance or self-importance. 

NEMESIS 

Derived ultimately from a Greek word meaning a distribution or doling out of something, Nemesis was the name of a Greek (and later Roman) goddess of retribution and divine vengeance, who was tasked with either punishing or rewarding people for their evil or benevolent actions. It is from her that the word came to be used for anything that proves an eternal enemy, or risks bringing about a person’s downfall. 

PANIC 

In Greek mythology, Pan was the goat-legged, panpipe-playing god of woods, pastures, herds, and fertility, who was often said to reside in isolated woodlands and mountainsides.

Among the many curious stories associated with him was the belief that his voice or disembodied cries could cause herds of animals or crowds of people to stampede, seemingly for no reason—while lone walkers in the woods where he dwelled would typically attribute the unnerving calls and sounds of the wilderness to him. Pan’s ability to seemingly alarm people without being seen, ultimately, is the origin of our word panic. 

TANTALIZE 

In Greek legend, Tantalus was an ancient king of Lydia who fell into such disfavor with the gods that in the underworld he was condemned to forever stand up to his neck in water that ebbed away from him as he leaned to take a drink, and beneath a fruit tree whose branches were lifted away by the wind whenever he reached up to pick them.

Eternally hungry but unable to eat, and eternally thirsty but unable to drink, his name has since come to be used for a kind of drinks holder that keeps its decanters visible yet under lock and key—while his dastardly punishment of temptation inspired the verb tantalize. 

VOLCANO 

The word volcano was adopted into English via either Italian or Spanish, but can be ultimately traced back to the name of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. 

You May Also Like: