Art & MusicGreek → English
Idyll
/ˈaɪdɪl/noun
A short work describing a peaceful rural scene, or any period of untroubled happiness.
The Greek roots
εἰδύλλιον
eidúllion
little picture, short poem
εἶδος
eîdos
form, appearance
Literally: “little form, small picture”
The story of the word
Theocritus wrote the originals in third-century Alexandria: short pieces about goatherds singing at each other, composed by a sophisticated city poet for other city readers. The nostalgia was built in from the start. The modern sense, an interlude of calm, comes from the mood of the poems rather than their form, and the word is now used most often of holidays that ended.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
idyllicidolkaleidoscopeidolatry
In a sentence
Two weeks on the island turned into a small domestic idyll.
Tennyson's Idylls of the King are anything but peaceful.