Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Symposium
/sɪmˈpoʊziəm/noun
A meeting at which specialists give papers on one subject.
The Greek roots
σύν
sýn
together, with
πόσις
pósis
drinking
Literally: “a drinking together”
The story of the word
The Greek συμπόσιον was the drinking that followed dinner, run by an elected symposiarch who decided how much water went into the wine. Men reclined on couches, a slave poured, and the entertainment ran from riddles and songs to the kind of speeches Plato staged in his Symposium. English used the word for a convivial party from the 16th century; the sober academic meaning arrived in the 18th and owes everything to Plato's title.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
symphonysympathysynod
In a sentence
The symposium ran from nine to six with a sandwich lunch and no wine at all.