Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Gubernatorial
/ˌɡuːbərnəˈtɔːriəl/adjective
Having to do with a governor or the office of governor.
The Greek roots
κυβερνήτης
kybernḗtēs
steersman, helmsman
Literally: “of the helmsman”
Follow a root:κυβερνήτης5 words
The story of the word
Latin borrowed the Greek word for the man at the steering oar as gubernator, and the metaphor of steering a state has run in politics ever since. Gubernatorial is American English, in print by the 1730s, while the softer Latin form travelled through French gouverner into English govern. Norbert Wiener went back to the original in 1948 for cybernetics, so a state governor and a cyborg both trace to a sailor with his hand on an oar.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1730s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
governgovernorcyberneticscyborg
In a sentence
She announced a gubernatorial run in a hall that held maybe forty people.
The gubernatorial veto was overridden within the week.