Myth & LegendGreek → English
Persephone
/pərˈsɛfəni/noun
The goddess carried off to the underworld, queen of the dead and daughter of Demeter.
The Greek roots
Περσεφόνη
Persephónē
name of uncertain origin
Literally: “unknown; the Greeks could not agree either”
Follow a root:Περσεφόνη1 word
The story of the word
The name has no accepted Greek derivation, and the sheer number of ancient spellings, Περσεφόνη, Φερσεφόνη and Περσέφασσα among them, points to a word the Greeks inherited from an earlier language and never managed to explain. Ancient writers heard φόνος, slaughter, in the second half, which is folk etymology rather than evidence. Rome reshaped her as Proserpina, and the pomegranate seeds that hold her below for part of each year are the myth's own account of why crops stop.
- How it travelled
- Pre-Greek → Ancient Greek → Latin → English
In a sentence
The vase shows Persephone seated, holding a torch, entirely composed.