Faith & RitualGreek → English
Epiphany
/ɪˈpɪfəni/noun
A sudden moment of understanding, or the Christian feast of 6 January.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, forth
φαίνειν
phaínein
to show, to shine
Literally: “a showing forth”
The story of the word
ἐπιφάνεια was the technical Greek word for a god becoming visible to mortals, and inscriptions use it of divine rescues at sea and in battle. The church took it for the showing of Christ to the Magi and English used it for that feast and almost nothing else until James Joyce borrowed it around 1900 for the sudden ordinary revelation his short stories are built to deliver. Phenomenon, phase and fantasy grow from the same verb.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
phenomenonphasefantasydiaphanous
In a sentence
Twelfth Night comes the evening before Epiphany.
Halfway through the second rehearsal he had an epiphany about the ending.