Words & WritingGreek → English
Tetralogy
/tɛˈtrælədʒi/noun
A set of four connected works, usually plays, novels or operas.
The Greek roots
τετρα-
tetra-
four
λόγος
lógos
word, discourse
Literally: “four discourses”
The story of the word
At the Athenian dramatic festivals a playwright entered four pieces at once: three tragedies and a satyr play to send the audience home lighter. Aeschylus is the only one whose linked set survives, and even then the satyr play is lost. Medicine borrowed the word for a different kind of foursome, the four heart defects of tetralogy of Fallot.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English
- First recorded
- 17th century
Same family
trilogytetrahedrondialogueanalogy
In a sentence
He swore he would finish the tetralogy before he turned fifty, and finished two books of it.