Iconoclasm
/aɪˈkɒnəklæzəm/noun
The destruction of religious images, or by extension any attack on established beliefs.
The Greek roots
Literally: “image breaking”
The story of the word
Byzantium tore itself apart over painted wood twice, from 726 to 787 and again from 815 to 843, and the eventual winners named the losers εἰκονοκλάσται, image-breakers. English borrowed the word in the sixteenth century for reformers with hammers, then softened it in the nineteenth into a compliment for anyone who attacks received opinion. The Orthodox still keep the anniversary of the restoration of the icons as the Sunday of Orthodoxy.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
The gallery labels treat the whitewashing of the murals as iconoclasm rather than redecoration.
His reputation for iconoclasm rested on two lectures and a very rude review.