Myth & LegendGreek → English
Hector
/ˈhɛktər/noun
A male given name, and as a verb, to bully someone with talk.
The Greek roots
Ἕκτωρ
Héktōr
Hector, holder
ἔχειν
ékhein
to hold, have
Literally: “he who holds fast”
The story of the word
The name is built on ἔχειν, to hold, and reads as holder or stayer, which fits the man who held Troy together for ten years and then died outside its walls. The verb to hector has almost nothing to do with him: it comes from gangs of swaggering young men in Restoration London who called themselves Hectors. So the most decent character in the Iliad ended up lending English a word for a domineering nuisance.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
epochhecticschemecachexia
In a sentence
Stop hectoring the poor man and let him finish the sentence.