Polytheism

The story of the word

Greek had πολύθεος as an adjective, but no Greek needed a name for the practice of worshipping many gods, because nobody around them did anything else. The abstract noun is a comparative term, made in French by Jean Bodin in the 1580s and in English by the 1610s, at the point where scholars were sorting the world's religions into types. You only name your own arrangement once an alternative is thinkable.

How it travelled

Ancient Greek → French → English

First recorded

1610s