Pour Some Sugar on Me
I was reading through
Wolves and Honey : A Hidden History of the Natural World by Susan Brind Morrow and the inside flap commented that the word "nectar" comes from Greek for "overcoming death." I knew that nectar (ambrosia)was the food of the Greek gods that kept them youthful. A quick look up at dictionary.com was disappointing in stating only : [Latin, from Greek
nektar, drink of the gods. See
nek-1 in Indo-European Roots.]
So, I resorted to google.....
Pernicious -- "...The noun from today's adjective is perniciousness and the adverb, perniciously. This adjective is related to an old noun, pernicion "destruction, ruin", which hasn't been used much since the 18th century. A second adjective, pernicious "fast, rapid, swift", is so rare as to probably be obsolete. The same applies to its noun, pernicity..."
"Word History: This Good Word comes to us courtesy of French, which lent us its pernicieux, the descendant of Latin perniciosus. This adjective came from the noun pernicies "destruction", based on per "through, thorough" + nex (nek-s-) "death" + a noun suffix. The oldest form of this root was PIE *nek-/*nok- "death", the same root shows in Greek nekros "corpse", found in the English borrowings necrosis "dead tissue" and necrology "obituary". The o-form turns up in Latin noxa "injury", at the root of English noxious and obnoxious. You might wonder how the drink of the gods could be associated with death. Well, the same root, nek-, appears in Greek nectar, borrowed as English nectar with a meaning far removed from death or perniciousness. However, it entered Greek meaning "that which overcomes death" from nek- "death" + tar- "pass over, overcome"."
--from
yourdictionary.com"
Black magic is a mistake — it has nothing to do with the color. The original term in Latin was
necromantia, divination by examining a corpse. (The
necro- root is in
necrophilia,
necropolis (city of the dead),
necrotic or dying tissue, etc., while
nuisance, innocent, innocuous, noxious, and
obnoxious are all from a softened Latin
nocere, to harm. An unlikely relative is
nectar, from a Greek compound meaning to "overcome death". Nectar was the drink of the immortal gods.) Some medieval scribe misread "necromantia" as "nigromantia" and translated it into English as "black art." The Indo-European
nekwt root, meaning "black", legitimately led to
Negro, night, nocturnal, equinox, etc. To
denigrate someone is to "blacken" their reputation.
[20Aug04]
Niggardly (stingy) tends to cause people to wince these days because of its resemblance to a certain taboo word, but it is from French
nigon, a miser, completely unrelated to the "black" words."
-- from
words, words, words (a wonderful page).
mostly unrelated, but interesting...
ichor n.
1. Greek Mythology. The rarefied fluid said to run in the veins of the gods.
2. Pathology. A watery, acrid discharge from a wound or ulcer.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
aether n 1: personification of the sky or upper air breathed by the Olympians; son of Erebus and Night or of Chaos and Darkness [syn: Aether] 2: a medium that was once supposed to fill all space and to support the propagation of electromagnetic waves [syn: ether]
WordNet ® 2.0
(from
dictionary.com)
This etymology appears a bit questionable, but the connection is interesting:
/20/ The Greek word nectar, and the Sanskrit amrit, and alike in their etymology—"the immortal." Both were the food of the undying gods, and the Hindoo deities thus obtained their ambrosia. The Daityas, like the Titans, had waged war upon the divinities (the Suras), and these last betook themselves to Vishnoo for protection. He bade them cast certain medicinal herbs into the "sea of milk;" then taking Mount Mandara for a churning-stick, and the king of the serpents for the twisting-string, the gods began to churn the ocean for nectar. The Daityas themselves aided on promise of sharing in the strength-restoring extract, and stood at the serpent's head while the Suras worked at the tail. The great Vishnoo also took part in the work as a tortoise, upon whose back the mountain whirled round backwards and forwards. Out of the seething flood there came up at the last a figure robed in white—Dhanwantari, the physician of the gods—who bore in his hands the first cup-full of the amrit. From the same ocean also rose the ever-lovely Lukshmi,—the marvellous cow, from which all things that could be desired might be milked,—and the kalkût, or poison which stained the neck of Shiva. The nectar thus obtained bestowed new vigour on the wearied gods, and was stored up in the moon, where the lunar rays ripen and perfect it.
from this
footnote in book two of the
Hitopadesa online.
Maybe it's time for a jaunt to the library to look in the OED for myself.
(The word honey seems lackluster in comparison to nectar:
[Middle English
honi, from Old English
hunig.])
