Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Periscope
/ˈpɛrɪskoʊp/noun
A tube of mirrors or prisms that lets someone see over or around an obstruction.
The Greek roots
περί
perí
around
σκοπεῖν
skopeîn
to look at, watch
Literally: “looking around”
The story of the word
Περισκοπεῖν, to look about you, was ordinary Greek, and nineteenth-century optics used periscopic for lenses giving a wide field before the tube got the name. The naval instrument, letting a submerged boat see the surface, arrives around the turn of the twentieth century as submarines became practical. Trench periscopes in 1915 were often no more than two shaving mirrors in a wooden box. The same σκοπεῖν gives telescope, microscope and the ἐπίσκοπος behind bishop.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- late 19th century
Same family
telescopemicroscopeperimeterscope
In a sentence
He raised the periscope for eight seconds, took a bearing, and dived again.