Faith & RitualGreek → English
Mitre
/ˈmaɪtər/noun
The tall cleft hat worn by bishops, and the name of a corner joint cut at matching angles.
The Greek roots
μίτρα
mítra
headband, girdle
Literally: “headband”
Follow a root:μίτρα1 word
The story of the word
In Homer the μίτρα is a metal belt worn under the armour to protect the belly; later Greeks used it of an eastern headband that Athenian men considered unmanly. The bishop's version reached its present forked shape around the eleventh century. The heart's mitral valve is named after it, having two flaps like the hat's two peaks, and the carpenter's mitre joint is the same word again, a leap nobody has explained convincingly.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
In a sentence
The mitre was too tall for the doorway and he took it off in the porch.