Greek Terms
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Terms on this page have been used in features on this site.
Terms from Philosophy
Ataraxia: the experience of optimal, enduring pleasure
Apathea: perfect indifference to everything external part of Stoicism
Terms from Drama
Aulos: A flute player
Cothurnoi: soft shoes Eccyclema: a large wheeled platform eccyclema for interior scenes
Mechane: crane In the 4th century
Parados/Paradoi: On either side of the skene were ramps paradoi leading to the orchestra.
Orchestra: the chorus danced and sang on a level terrace called an orchestra in front of the sloping seating and viewing area theatron
Skene: At the back of the terrace was the wooden skene from which we get the word scene
Theatron: viewing area
See more in Tragedy Terminology
Terms from the Olympics
Stade: a 200-yard foot race
Diaulos: 400-yard foot race
Dolichos: variable length foot race, averaging 20 stades
Himantes: Originally the boxing gloves were thongs wrapped around the hands and arms, but evolved into less time consuming oxen prewrapped thongs known as himantes, held in place by leather straps wrapped around the forearm.
Pentathlon: began with the 18th Olympiad and consisted of discus, javelin, long jump, running, and wrestling.
Divine Personification
Gaia: Earth
Uranus: Sky
Metis: wisdom or cunning
Humoral Theory
Isonomia: the preponderance of one of the four bodily humors:
Four Bodily Humors:Melancholic: too much earth
- Yellow Bile
- Black Bile
- Phlegm
- Blood
Sanguine: too much air
Choleric: too much fire
Phlegmatic: too much water.
Social Organization
Oikos: a family plus, among the powerful, free and slave dependents.
Genos: group of families claiming descent from a common ancestor clan.
Phylai: Three phratries formed a tribe headed by a tribe king.
Thesmothetai: "layers down of law,"
Eupatrids: noblemen
Ecclesia: assembly was comprised of all citizens
Orgeones: lower class peasants, laborers, artisans, and tradesmen.
Miscellaneous Terms
Cosmogony: The creation of the world or universe; a theory or account of such creation; as, the poetical cosmogony of Hesiod; the cosmogonies of Thales, Anaxagoras, and Plato
Hamartia: the fall of a noble man caused by hamartia, some excess or mistake in behavior, not because of a willful violation of the gods' laws.
Hecatonchires: the fifty-headed offspring of Gaia Earth and Uranus Sky
Hegemon: Leader
Hellenes: Greeks, Achaeans and Danaans
Heraclides: descendants of Hercules
Inductio: described by Cicero as "getting one's interlocutor to assent to a doubtful proposition that resembles the earlier one"
Metic: resident alien
Nothoi: illegitimate
Phasi: they say
This resource page is copyright © 2000-2007 N.S. Gill.
