Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Iconoclast
/aɪˈkɒnəklæst/noun
Someone who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions.
The Greek roots
εἰκών
eikṓn
image, likeness
κλάειν
klâein
to break
Literally: “image breaker”
The story of the word
Byzantium spent more than a century fighting over religious images, and εἰκονοκλάστης, image-breaker, is what the winning side called the losers once the argument was settled in 843. κλάειν was the ordinary verb for snapping something, the one used of breaking bread at a meal. English borrowed the word in the 1590s for the historical party, then in the nineteenth century turned it into a compliment for anyone who goes after received opinion with a hammer.
- How it travelled
- Medieval Greek → Medieval Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1590s
Same family
iconiconographyiconostasis
In a sentence
He was hired as an iconoclast and fired for behaving like one.
The gallery billed her as an iconoclast, which mostly meant she painted badly on purpose.