Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Obol
/ˈɑbəl/noun
A small ancient Greek coin, one sixth of a drachma.
The Greek roots
ὀβελός
obelós
spit, pointed rod
Literally: “a little spit”
Follow a root:ὀβελός1 word
The story of the word
Before silver, iron cooking spits were used as money, and the coin kept the name of the object it replaced; six of them filled a hand, which is the drachma. Custom put one in the mouth of the dead to pay Charon for the crossing, and archaeologists still find them there. The same rod gives the obelisk, a spit standing on end, and the obelus, the mark Alexandrian editors put beside lines of Homer they thought were fake.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
obeliskobelusobelize
In a sentence
A day's pay for a juror in Athens was a couple of obols.