Earth & SkyGreek → English
Orion
/əˈraɪən/noun
The bright winter constellation of the hunter, with its three-star belt.
The Greek roots
Ὠρίων
Ōríōn
Orion, the giant hunter
Literally: “the hunter's name, sense unknown”
Follow a root:Ὠρίων1 word
The story of the word
Homer's Ὠρίων is a giant who goes on hunting in the underworld, driving the beasts he killed on the hills. The name has no agreed Greek derivation and may be older than Greek itself. What the Greeks did with him was practical: Hesiod times threshing, ploughing and sailing by when Orion rises and sets, so the constellation worked as a farmer's calendar centuries before it was decoration.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
AndromedaPerseusSirius
In a sentence
Orion clears the rooftops by nine in January.
The three stars of Orion's belt are the easiest thing to find in a city sky.