Sport & ContestGreek → English
Pentathlon
/pɛnˈtæθlɒn/noun
An athletic competition scored across five separate events.
The Greek roots
πέντε
pénte
five
ἆθλον
âthlon
contest, prize
Literally: “five contests”
The story of the word
The ancient πένταθλον, added to the Olympics in 708 BC, was discus, javelin, long jump, sprint and wrestling, and its winner was regarded as the best all-round athlete in Greece. The modern pentathlon Coubertin designed in 1912 replaces all five with a nineteenth-century soldier's skills: shooting, fencing, swimming, riding and running. Only the name and the number survived.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
triathlondecathlonathletepentagon
In a sentence
She trained for the pentathlon and hated exactly one of the five events.