Words & WritingGreek → English
Heroine
/ˈhɛroʊɪn/noun
A woman admired for courage, or the central female character in a story.
The Greek roots
ἡρωΐνη
hērōínē
female hero
Literally: “woman of the hero class”
Follow a root:ἡρωΐνη1 word
The story of the word
Greek ἥρως had a technical sense that English loses: a dead man who received worship at his tomb, ranked between mortals and gods. The feminine ἡρωΐνη was used the same way, and Latin heroina carried it into English in the 17th century. Bayer registered Heroin as a trade name for a cough remedy in 1898, built on the same root, reportedly because patients said the drug made them feel heroisch.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
heroheroicheroin
In a sentence
The heroine spends two hundred pages being sensible while everyone around her panics.