Earth & SkyGreek → English
Ptolemaic
/ˌtɒlɪˈmeɪɪk/adjective
Belonging either to the Greek dynasty that ruled Egypt or to the earth-centred astronomy of Ptolemy of Alexandria.
The Greek roots
Πτολεμαῖος
Ptolemaîos
Ptolemy, warlike one
Literally: “of Ptolemy, the warlike”
Follow a root:Πτολεμαῖος1 word
The story of the word
Two different Ptolemies hide inside this adjective. The dynasty that held Egypt from Alexander's death to Cleopatra descends from Ptolemy son of Lagus; Claudius Ptolemaeus, who worked in Alexandria three centuries later, was no relation to them at all. The name itself is Macedonian and martial, built on πτόλεμος, the epic form of the word for war, so the model of a motionless earth is filed under a word meaning fighter.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
polemicpolemical
In a sentence
Copernicus was still using Ptolemaic epicycles to make his own model fit the observations.