Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Dynasty
/ˈdaɪnəsti/noun
A line of rulers or leaders drawn from the same family, or the period during which they hold power.
The Greek roots
δυναστεία
dynasteía
power, lordship
δύναμαι
dýnamai
to be able, be strong
Literally: “the holding of power”
The story of the word
For Thucydides a δυναστεία was not a proud word: it named the narrow rule of a powerful clique, close to what we would call an oligarchy, with no implication of legitimate succession. The hereditary sense came later, and English took it in the fifteenth century, largely for cataloguing the pharaohs. The root δύναμαι, to be able, also gave dynamic and gave Alfred Nobel the name for dynamite in 1867.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
dynamicdynamitedynamoaerodynamics
In a sentence
The bakery is on its fourth generation, which the family calls a dynasty with a straight face.