Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Diplomacy
/dɪˈploʊməsi/noun
The conduct of relations between states by negotiation.
The Greek roots
δίπλωμα
díplōma
folded paper
Literally: “a folded document”
Follow a root:δίπλωμα3 words
The story of the word
A δίπλωμα was a sheet folded in two, and in Roman use it meant a folded letter of safe conduct carried by an official on the road. Eighteenth-century scholars who studied old charters were called diplomatists, and the word slid off the paperwork onto the men who carried it; Burke was using diplomacy for the business of ambassadors in the 1790s. Your degree certificate is the same folded sheet.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1790s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
diplomadiplomatdiploid
In a sentence
It took six months of quiet diplomacy to get both sides into the same room.