Myth & LegendGreek → English
Nymph
/nɪmf/noun
A minor female nature spirit of Greek myth; also the immature stage of certain insects.
The Greek roots
νύμφη
nýmphē
bride, young woman
Literally: “bride”
Follow a root:νύμφη2 words
The story of the word
The everyday Greek word for a bride was also the word for the spirits of springs, trees and mountains, and Greek weddings and landscape shared their vocabulary without embarrassment. Entomologists borrowed it for the young insect that already resembles the adult, the stage before the final moult. The related Latin verb nubere, to marry, gives nuptial and, by way of a veil-shaped cloud, nubile.
- 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
nymphomanialymphparanymph
In a sentence
Dragonfly nymphs spend years underwater before their single summer in the air.