Everyday LifeGreek → English
Rhyton
/ˈraɪtɒn/noun
A horn-shaped ancient drinking vessel, often ending in an animal head, with a small hole at the tip through which wine streamed.
The Greek roots
ῥυτόν
rhutón
drinking horn, flowing vessel
ῥέω
rhéō
to flow
Literally: “the flowing thing”
The story of the word
The name describes the mechanism, not the shape. A rhyton has a second opening at the narrow end, so the drinker unstoppers it with a thumb and lets wine run into the mouth or into a cup below. Same root as rheumatism and diarrhoea, both named for things that flow.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
rheumdiarrhoeacatarrhrheostat
In a sentence
The museum case held a silver rhyton shaped like a ram's head.
Persian and Thracian workshops made rhyta far grander than anything in Attica.