Everyday LifeGreek → English
Epicure
/ˈɛpɪkjʊr/noun
A person with refined taste in food and drink.
The Greek roots
Ἐπίκουρος
Epíkouros
Epicurus, literally ally, helper
Literally: “a follower of Epicurus”
Follow a root:Ἐπίκουρος2 words
The story of the word
Epicurus taught that pleasure is the absence of pain and lived on bread, water and the occasional pot of cheese. His rivals, and later the Christian writers, found it convenient to present his school as a dining club, and that caricature is the version English inherited in the fifteenth century. The philosopher's own name means something like helper or ally, which the word never carried.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
Same family
epicureanepicurism
In a sentence
He was enough of an epicure to send the wine back, and polite enough to do it quietly.