Earth & SkyGreek → English
Isthmus
/ˈɪsməs/noun
A narrow strip of land joining two larger landmasses with sea on both sides.
The Greek roots
ἰσθμός
isthmós
narrow neck of land
Literally: “narrow passage”
Follow a root:ἰσθμός1 word
The story of the word
For Greeks the isthmus was the Isthmus of Corinth, the four-mile bridge of rock holding the Peloponnese onto the mainland. The Isthmian Games were held there every two years, one of the four panhellenic festivals alongside Olympia, Delphi and Nemea. Ships were dragged across on a paved slipway, the diolkos, because sailing around Cape Malea was worse; the canal was finally cut in 1893. The word's own origin inside Greek is unclear.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1550s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
isthmian
In a sentence
Panama is an isthmus, which is why the canal is short and the digging was not.