Words & WritingGreek → English
Polemic
/pəˈlɛmɪk/noun
A forceful written or spoken attack on an opinion or a person.
The Greek roots
πόλεμος
pólemos
war, battle
Literally: “warlike”
Follow a root:πόλεμος2 words
The story of the word
πολεμικός meant fit for war and described troops, weapons and ships long before it described prose. English took it in the seventeenth century for theological combat on paper, which that century produced in enormous quantity. The polemarch, whose title holds the same πόλεμος, was a real Athenian office: Callimachus held it at Marathon and commanded the right wing, where the honour and the danger both sat.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
polemicalpolemarch
In a sentence
The book is less a history than a polemic against the whole discipline.
He can write a fair-minded essay, but he prefers a polemic.