Words & WritingGreek → English
Bucolic
/bjuːˈkɒlɪk/adjective
Pastoral in setting or mood, carrying the quiet of the countryside.
The Greek roots
βοῦς
boûs
ox, cow
-κόλος
-kólos
tending, herding
Literally: “cowherd-like”
The story of the word
A boukólos was specifically a cowherd, not a shepherd, and Theocritus put such men into singing contests in third-century BC Alexandria while living in a city. Virgil's Eclogues, also called the Bucolics, carried the mode to Rome and fixed it for European poetry. The boû- half turns up in stranger places: bulimia is ox-hunger, and a hecatomb was a hundred cattle.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
bulimiahecatombboustrophedon
In a sentence
The brochure promised bucolic calm and delivered a caravan park beside the motorway.