Myth & LegendGreek → English
Atlantis
/atˈlantɪs/noun
The legendary island empire that Plato describes sinking into the sea, invoked ever since as a lost civilisation.
The Greek roots
Ἀτλαντίς
Atlantís
of Atlas, Atlas's island
Literally: “island of Atlas”
Follow a root:Ἀτλαντίς1 word
The story of the word
Atlantis appears in exactly two texts, Plato's Timaeus and Critias, and nowhere in Greek literature before them. He uses it as a foil: a rich naval empire that overreached and was destroyed, set against an idealised early Athens. The name is a feminine possessive of Atlas, the Titan who also gave his name to the Atlantic and, through Mercator's frontispiece, to every book of maps.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
Atlanticatlastelamon
In a sentence
Every few years someone announces they have found Atlantis off a different coast.
Plato spends more words on the drainage of Atlantis than on its destruction.