Words & WritingGreek → English
Antihero
/ˈæntiˌhɪəroʊ/noun
A central character who lacks the courage, morality or grandeur normally expected of a protagonist.
The Greek roots
ἀντί
antí
against, instead of
ἥρως
hḗrōs
hero, warrior
Literally: “in place of a hero”
The story of the word
ἀντί means 'instead of' as often as it means 'against', and that is the sense here: the antihero occupies the hero's slot without the qualifications. It helps to know that ἥρως in Homer was not a moral title at all but a rank, a fighting man, and later a dead man honoured with a cult at his tomb. English had the compound by the early eighteenth century; the twentieth century gave it a career, from Dostoevsky's underground man onward.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English coinage
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
heroantithesisantibioticantidote
In a sentence
The novel gives us an antihero who lies to everyone, including the reader.