Everyday LifeGreek → English
Deipnosophist
/daɪpˈnɒsəfɪst/noun
A person skilled at learned and entertaining talk over a meal.
The Greek roots
δεῖπνον
deîpnon
dinner, main meal
σοφιστής
sophistḗs
expert, wise man
Literally: “dinner-table expert”
The story of the word
The word exists because of one book. Athenaeus wrote the Deipnosophistae around AD 200, fifteen volumes of scholars at dinner quoting poets at each other, and in doing so preserved fragments of nearly eight hundred lost authors. Without that long conversation about fish and wine, whole shelves of Greek comedy would be gone entirely.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
sophistsophisticatedphilosophysophomore
In a sentence
He was a genuine deipnosophist, and no one minded that dinner ran to midnight.
The club was founded by deipnosophists who took the name literally.