Faith & RitualGreek → English
Martyr
/ˈmɑːrtər/noun
Someone killed for refusing to give up a belief.
The Greek roots
μάρτυς
mártys
witness
Literally: “one who testifies”
Follow a root:μάρτυς1 word
The story of the word
In an Athenian courtroom a μάρτυς was simply the person who gave evidence. Early Christian writers used the word for those who testified to their faith under interrogation, and because the interrogation so often ended at the executioner the sense slid from testimony to death. Old English took it straight from church Latin, which makes it one of the oldest Greek loans in the language.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old English
- First recorded
- Old English
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
martyrdommartyrology
In a sentence
The church was built over the grave of a third-century martyr.
She plays the martyr every time the washing-up is left.