Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Strategy
/ˈstrætədʒi/noun
A long-range plan for reaching a goal, especially against opposition.
The Greek roots
στρατός
stratós
army, encamped host
ἄγειν
ágein
to lead
Literally: “army leading”
The story of the word
στρατηγία was the office and craft of the στρατηγός, the general. In democratic Athens the ten stratēgoi were among the very few officials elected rather than picked by lot, on the reasonable ground that random citizens should not command fleets; Pericles held the post year after year and ran the city from it. English borrowed the abstract noun late, from French, around 1810, when the Napoleonic wars made the distinction from tactics worth having.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French → English
- First recorded
- 1810
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
stratagemstrategistdemagoguepedagoguesynagogue
In a sentence
Their whole strategy was to survive the first hour and let the other side tire.