Faith & RitualGreek → English
Archangel
/ˈɑːrkeɪndʒəl/noun
An angel of high rank, in Christian tradition one of the named few such as Michael and Gabriel.
The Greek roots
ἀρχι-
archi-
chief, first
ἄγγελος
ángelos
messenger
Literally: “chief messenger”
The story of the word
ἄγγελος meant a messenger before it meant anything winged, an ordinary runner carrying news, and the Greek Old Testament used it to render Hebrew mal'akh, which also just means messenger. The compound archangel appears twice in the New Testament and names exactly one being, Michael. Later hierarchies stacked nine orders of angels and placed archangels second from the bottom, which surprises anyone who assumes the prefix means highest.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- Old English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
angelevangelistarchbishoparchetype
In a sentence
The east window shows the archangel with a set of scales.