Everyday LifeGreek → English
Andrew
/ˈændruː/noun
A male given name, borne by the apostle who is patron saint of Scotland, Greece and Russia.
The Greek roots
ἀνήρ, ἀνδρός
anḗr, andrós
man, husband
Literally: “manly, of a man”
Follow a root:ἀνήρ, ἀνδρός3 words
The story of the word
Ἀνδρέας is built on the word for an adult male as distinct from a woman or a boy, and the sense shades into courage, since ἀνδρεία is the standard Greek word for bravery. The apostle Andrew was a Galilean fisherman with a purely Greek name, which tells you how far Greek had spread through first-century Palestine. The same root gives android, a thing shaped like a man, and philander, from a Greek adjective for fond of men that English somehow reassigned to unfaithful husbands.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
Same family
androidphilanderpolyandrymisandry
In a sentence
Andrew brought the ladder, which was the only useful thing anyone did that day.