Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Hermeneutics
/ˌhɜːrməˈnjuːtɪks/noun
The theory and method of interpreting texts, especially scripture.
The Greek roots
ἑρμηνεύειν
hermēneúein
to interpret, translate
Literally: “the art of interpreting”
Follow a root:ἑρμηνεύειν1 word
The story of the word
An ἑρμηνεύς was the man who put one language into another, an interpreter at the harbour or the court. The tempting link to Hermes, messenger between gods and people, is ancient and unproven; most philologists treat the resemblance as unexplained rather than picking a side. English took the word in the eighteenth century for the rules of biblical reading, and it grew into a general theory of understanding only in the nineteenth and twentieth.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
In a sentence
Her hermeneutics starts from the assumption that no reader arrives without a history.