Everyday LifeGreek → English
Andronicus
/ænˈdrɒnɪkəs/noun
A male given name of Greek origin, borne by scholars, emperors and a figure greeted in Paul's letter to the Romans.
The Greek roots
ἀνήρ
anḗr
man
νίκη
níkē
victory
Literally: “victory of a man”
The story of the word
One Andronicus changed how philosophy is named. Andronicus of Rhodes edited Aristotle's unpublished lecture notes in the first century BC and filed a set of untitled treatises after the ones on nature: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, the things after the physics, which is where metaphysics comes from. Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus has no connection beyond the sound of the name.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
androidmisandryNikepolyandry
In a sentence
Andronicus arranged the treatises and the arrangement became a discipline.
Two Byzantine emperors of that name reigned badly and briefly.