Myth & LegendGreek → English
Promethean
/prəˈmiːθiən/adjective
Boldly creative and willing to defy limits, usually on humanity's behalf.
The Greek roots
Προμηθεύς
Promētheús
Prometheus, the forethinker
Literally: “of the one who thinks ahead”
Follow a root:Προμηθεύς2 words
The story of the word
The name reads as forethought, set against his brother Epimetheus, afterthought, the one who accepted Pandora and her jar without checking. Hesiod has him smuggle fire in a hollow fennel stalk; Aeschylus makes him the source of every human craft, from numbers to medicine. Mary Shelley subtitled Frankenstein The Modern Prometheus, and the adjective has carried a warning ever since.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
In a sentence
The project had a Promethean streak: enormous ambition, and no plan for what came after.