Earth & SkyGreek → English
Agate
/ˈæɡət/noun
A banded variety of chalcedony, cut and polished for ornament.
The Greek roots
ἀχάτης
achátēs
agate
Literally: “stone of the Achates river”
Follow a root:ἀχάτης1 word
The story of the word
Theophrastus reports that the stone took its name ἀχάτης from the Sicilian river Achates where it was found, and Pliny repeats him; the river's own name is not Greek. Latin achates gave Old French agate, and English picked it up in the sixteenth century. Printers later used agate for a type size of about five and a half points, named for the smallness of the stone.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
In a sentence
Sliced thin, the agate showed forty bands of grey and rust.