Art & MusicGreek → English
Hamartia
/ˌhɑːmɑːrˈtiːə/noun
The error of judgement that brings a tragic figure down.
The Greek roots
ἁμαρτία
hamartía
error, missing the mark
Literally: “a shot gone wide”
Follow a root:ἁμαρτία1 word
The story of the word
The archery metaphor is the whole of it: hamartánō is what a spear does when it misses. Translators who render Aristotle's hamartía as tragic flaw smuggle in a moral defect the Greek never demanded, since a plain mistake of fact will do, as when Oedipus kills a stranger at a crossroads. The New Testament uses the same noun for sin, so every time Paul writes hamartía he is writing about a shot that went wide.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
In a sentence
Her hamartia is not pride but a stubborn belief that the letter arrived on time.