Myth & LegendGreek → English
Python
/ˈpaɪθɑn/noun
A large non-venomous snake of Africa, Asia and Australia that kills by constriction.
The Greek roots
Πύθων
Pýthōn
the serpent of Delphi
Literally: “the Delphic serpent”
Follow a root:Πύθων1 word
The story of the word
Apollo killed the serpent Python at Delphi and left the body to rot, and the Homeric Hymn derives the place name Pytho from πύθειν, to rot. That is ancient wordplay rather than sound linguistics, but it stuck. The priestess at the sanctuary was the Pythia and the games held nearby were the Pythian. The French zoologist Daudin took the name for the snake genus in 1803, and the programming language was named after Monty Python.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → modern Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
PythiaPythianpythoness
In a sentence
The python had not eaten in a month and was in no hurry.
A python in the roof space is not a problem you solve yourself.