Words & WritingGreek → English
Eclogue
/ˈɛklɒɡ/noun
A short pastoral poem, usually a dialogue between shepherds.
The Greek roots
ἐκ
ek
out of
λέγειν
légein
to pick, to gather
Literally: “a picking out”
The story of the word
Virgil's ten pastoral poems circulated under the title Eclogae, and the word means nothing more romantic than 'selections', pieces picked out of a larger stock. Medieval scribes spelled it aegloga and tied it to αἴξ, goat, which suited the shepherds and was false. Its plainest English cousin is eclectic, from the same verb for choosing.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
eclecticdialectcataloguelexicon
In a sentence
He opened the anthology at an eclogue in which two herdsmen argue about a singing contest and neither wins.
Spenser wrote twelve eclogues, one for each month.