Myth & LegendGreek → English
Hermetic
/hɜːˈmɛtɪk/adjective
Airtight, or belonging to the occult tradition of alchemy and esoteric wisdom.
The Greek roots
Ἑρμῆς
Hermês
Hermes, the god
Literally: “of Hermes”
Follow a root:Ἑρμῆς4 words
The story of the word
Greek-speaking Egyptians fused Hermes with Thoth into Hermes Trismegistus, thrice-greatest, and attributed to him a library of alchemical and magical texts. Alchemists working from those books developed a way of fusing a glass tube shut, and called it the seal of Hermes. That is the whole path from a messenger god to the word on a jam-jar lid.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
hermeneuticsHermeshermetically
In a sentence
The samples travel in hermetic vials.
His later poems are hermetic to the point of being private.