Mystery
/ˈmɪstəri/noun
Something unexplained or unexplainable; also a story built around a crime to be solved.
The Greek roots
Literally: “secret rite”
The story of the word
A mystḗrion was a rite you were initiated into, and a mýstēs was the initiate, from mýō, to close the lips or the eyes. The Eleusinian Mysteries ran for something like two thousand years and not one participant left a record of what happened inside, which is an extraordinary result for a secret shared by thousands. The detective sense is nineteenth century. The mystery in mystery play is a different word entirely, from Latin ministerium, a craft or trade guild.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
In a sentence
How the cat got onto the roof remains a mystery.
She reads a mystery a week and guesses the ending by chapter four.