Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Oyster
/ˈɔɪstər/noun
A bivalve mollusc with a rough hinged shell, eaten raw or cooked and sometimes producing pearls.
The Greek roots
ὄστρεον
óstreon
oyster, shellfish
Literally: “hard-shelled creature”
Follow a root:ὄστρεον1 word
The story of the word
ὄστρεον belongs to a small Greek family of words about hard things: ὀστέον, bone, sits beside it, and the shell is what the name notices. Latin ostrea passed to Old French oistre, and English had oyster by 1300. Ostracism comes down the same line by way of ὄστρακον, the potsherd an Athenian scratched a name onto to vote a man out of the city for ten years.
- 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
ostracismosteopathyosteoporosis
In a sentence
He shucked a dozen oysters in under two minutes and cut himself once.