Everyday LifeGreek → English
Oenochoe
/iːˈnɒkoʊi/noun
An ancient Greek wine jug with a single handle and a trefoil or round mouth, used to ladle wine from the mixing bowl.
The Greek roots
οἶνος
oînos
wine
χέω
khéō
to pour
Literally: “wine-pourer”
The story of the word
It belongs to a set: wine was mixed with water in the krater, carried in the oinochoe, and drunk from the kylix. The trefoil mouth is a practical detail, splitting the pour into a controllable stream. Oinos is cousin to Latin vinum and so to wine itself, all probably from a lost Mediterranean word for the vine.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
oenologyoenophilekrater
In a sentence
The black-figure oenochoe shows a slave filling a cup.
Fragments of at least four oenochoai came from the same pit.