Sport & ContestGreek → English
Disc
/dɪsk/noun
A flat circular object, from a thrown quoit to a spinal cushion to a data disk.
The Greek roots
δίσκος
dískos
quoit, throwing plate
Literally: “the thing thrown”
Follow a root:δίσκος9 words
The story of the word
Δίσκος comes from δικεῖν, to throw, so the name describes what an athlete did with it rather than its shape. The Discobolus, Myron's fifth-century bronze, freezes a man mid-throw. English holds two spellings from one word: disc took the Latin route through discus, while dish and desk are older borrowings of the same Latin noun that arrived by different doors.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
discusdiskdishdesk
In a sentence
He slipped a disc lifting a crate of tiles and spent three weeks flat on the floor.