Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Pyrrhic
/ˈpɪrɪk/adjective
Won at so ruinous a cost that the victory is hardly worth having.
The Greek roots
Πύρρος
Pýrrhos
Pyrrhus, flame-coloured
πῦρ
pŷr
fire
Literally: “flame-red, of Pyrrhus”
The story of the word
Pyrrhus of Epirus beat the Romans at Asculum in 279 BC and, in Plutarch's telling, remarked that one more such victory would finish him. His name means flame-coloured, from πῦρ, fire, and probably described red hair. The metrical pyrrhic, a foot of two short syllables, is a separate word from πυρρίχη, an armed dance, though ancient writers tied that name to a Pyrrhus as well.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
pyrepyrotechnicpyromaniaempyrean
In a sentence
They won the case and lost the company: a pyrrhic result if ever there was one.