Everyday LifeGreek → English
Arsenius
/ɑrˈsiniəs/noun
A Greek male name, borne most famously by a fourth-century desert monk.
The Greek roots
ἄρσην
ársēn
male, manly
Literally: “manly”
Follow a root:ἄρσην2 words
The story of the word
Arsenius the Great was tutor to the emperor's sons in Constantinople before he left for the Egyptian desert, where the answer he says he received was to flee, be silent, be still. The name looks like arsenic and Greek speakers thought so too, calling yellow orpiment ἀρσενικόν as though it were the potent, masculine mineral. The poison's name actually came from Persian zarnīk through Arabic, and Greek reshaped it to fit a word it already knew.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
arsenicarrhenotoky
In a sentence
The monastery keeps the feast of Arsenius in May.