Myth & LegendGreek → English
Ganymede
/ˈɡænɪmiːd/proper noun
The Trojan boy Zeus carried off to pour wine for the gods, and the name of the largest moon in the solar system.
The Greek roots
γάνυμαι
gánymai
to gleam, rejoice
μήδεα
mḗdea
counsels, plans
Literally: “glad in counsel”
The story of the word
Simon Marius proposed the four mythological names in 1614, crediting the idea to Kepler; astronomers ignored him for three centuries and wrote Jupiter I to IV instead. The Greek name is usually parsed as gánymai, to gleam or take joy, plus mḗdea, counsels, though the reading has never been settled. Latin reshaped Ganymēdēs into Catamitus, probably by way of Etruscan Catmite, and English inherited catamite from that line.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
catamiteganoid
In a sentence
Ganymede is bigger than Mercury and is the only moon known to generate its own magnetic field.