Words & WritingGreek → English
Eponym
/ˈɛpənɪm/noun
A person or thing after whom something is named, or the name so derived.
The Greek roots
ἐπί
epí
upon, after
ὄνυμα
ónuma
name
Literally: “named upon”
The story of the word
Athens dated its years by the eponymous archon, the magistrate whose name the year carried, which is how Greek inscriptions record time at all. Medicine is thick with eponyms and has been trying to shed them, partly because Parkinson's disease tells you nothing and partly because some namesakes turned out to have been Nazi physicians. Sandwich, boycott and diesel are all eponyms that lost their capital letters.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
anonymoussynonympseudonymtoponym
In a sentence
Nicotine is an eponym, from Jean Nicot, who sent tobacco to the French court.
The style guide asks authors to prefer descriptive terms over eponyms.