When I was growing up, I always read and was taught in school that the word dinosaur comes from Greek roots that mean “terrible lizard.” This is how the current revision of the article “dinosaur” on Wikipedia translates the word also. This translation is not strictly incorrect, but it is not necessarily the most accurate translation either.
The English biologist and paleontologist Richard Owen coined the word dinosaur at a meeting for the British Association for the Advancement of Science in the year 1841 by combining the Greek adjective δεινός (deinós), which is usually translated as “terrible,” with the noun σαύρα (saúra), which means “lizard” or “reptile.”
The meaning of the word σαύρα is more-or-less straightforward, but the word δεινός is a bit more complicated than the simple translation of “terrible” might lead a person to believe. In some contexts, “terrible” is an adequate translation, but, unlike the English word terrible, which has exclusively negative meanings, δεινός can also have positive meanings. As such, “formidable” is probably a better translation of the word in general.
“Terrible” as a translation of δεινός
In many cases where the word δεινός occurs in ancient Greek literature, one could easily translate it as “terrible,” “frightening,” “dread,” or “dire” and it would accurately convey the meaning of the word in that context. For instance, in the Iliad 1.49, the word is used to describe the loud clang that resounds when the god Apollon fires his arrows of pestilence upon the Achaian armies. Lines 43–49 read as follows in the original Homeric Greek:
“ὣς ἔφατ᾽ εὐχόμενος, τοῦ δ᾽ ἔκλυε Φοῖβος Ἀπόλλων,
βῆ δὲ κατ᾽ Οὐλύμποιο καρήνων χωόμενος κῆρ,
τόξ᾽ ὤμοισιν ἔχων ἀμφηρεφέα τε φαρέτρην:
ἔκλαγξαν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ὀϊστοὶ ἐπ᾽ ὤμων χωομένοιο,
αὐτοῦ κινηθέντος: ὃ δ᾽ ἤϊε νυκτὶ ἐοικώς.
ἕζετ᾽ ἔπειτ᾽ ἀπάνευθε νεῶν, μετὰ δ᾽ ἰὸν ἕηκε:
δεινὴ δὲ κλαγγὴ γένετ᾽ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο:”
This means, in my own translation:
“Thus he spoke, praying, and Phoibos Apollon heard him
and he went down from the peak of Olympos, angered in his heart,
having his bow on his shoulders and his both-sides-covered quiver,
and the arrows clanged upon the shoulder of the angry god
as he set in motion, and he went like the night.
He sat down far from the ships and he shot forth an arrow,
and δεινή [the feminine singular nominative form of δεινός] was the clang of the silver bow.”
The message here is clearly that the clang of Apollon’s bow is frightening and, in this context, “terrible” would be a sufficiently accurate translation.
ABOVE: Detail of this photo from the SmartHistory Flickr account showing an Attic red-figure kalyx-krater painted by Niobid Painter dating to between c. 460 and c. 450 BCE, now held in the Louvre Museum, depicting the god Apollon firing his arrows upon the children of Niobe
When the substantive neuter plural form of the word is used, it can often be translated as “terrible things,” “frightening things,” or even simply “horrors.” For instance, in the Iliad 15.13, it is used to describe the sight of the Trojan prince Hektor lying on the ground wounded and in terrible agony, gasping and spluttering up blood. Lines 9–13 read as follows in the original Homeric Greek:
“Ἕκτορα δ᾽ ἐν πεδίῳ ἴδε κείμενον, ἀμφὶ δ᾽ ἑταῖροι
εἵαθ᾽, ὃ δ᾽ ἀργαλέῳ ἔχετ᾽ ἄσθματι κῆρ ἀπινύσσων
αἷμ᾽ ἐμέων, ἐπεὶ οὔ μιν ἀφαυρότατος βάλ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν.
τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ἐλέησε πατὴρ ἀνδρῶν τε θεῶν τε,
δεινὰ δ᾽ ὑπόδρα ἰδὼν Ἥρην πρὸς μῦθον ἔειπεν:”
This means, in my translation:
“And [Zeus] saw Hektor lying on the plain, and his companions on either side
sitting, and he was suffering with painful gasping, his heart confused,
vomitting blood, since not the most feeble of the Achaians had struck him.
And, seeing him, the father of men and deities had pity
and, seeing the δεινά [the neuter plural accusative form of δεινός] below, spoke to Hera with a speech:”
Many other examples exist of Greek authors using the word δεινά this way; this is only one example.
ABOVE: Illustration from the Ambrosian Iliad (Cod. F. 205 Inf.), an illustrated parchment manuscript of the Iliad dating to the fifth century CE, depicting soldiers fighting and dying on the battlefield at Troy
When being δεινός is actually a good thing
In all the contexts above, δεινός has a distinctly negative meaning. In other contexts, however, the word can actually have positive denotations and can mean something like “formidable,” “clever,” or “highly skilled.” The ancient Greeks especially often used the word δεινός in this way in the set phrase “δεινὸς λέγειν,” which means “formidable at speaking.”
As an example of this, the comic poet Epicharmos (who flourished in around the late sixth and early fifth centuries BCE) uses this phrase in his Fragment 272, which is preserved through quotation by the later Roman writer Aulus Gellius (lived c. 125 – after c. 180 CE) in his Attic Nights 1.15.15 and reads as follows:
“οὐ λέγειν τύγ’ ἐσσὶ δεινός, ἀλλὰ σιγᾶν ἀδύνατος.”
This means:
“You are not formidable at speaking, but you are unable to be silent.”
Clearly, the joke here is that the person that the speaker of this line is trying to insult is bad at speaking, but keeps doing it anyway, so he keeps making a fool of himself and everyone finds him annoying. For Epicharmos, being “δεινὸς λέγειν” is a good thing that a person should want to be and telling someone that they are not is an insult.
The phrase “δεινὸς λέγειν,” however, is not the only place where the word δεινός could mean “formidable” in a positive sense of clever or skilled; the ancient Greeks also used the word with this meaning on its own. For instance, the Athenian writer Xenophon (lived c. 430 – c. 354 BCE) in his Anabasis 1.9.19 exuberantly praises Kyros the Younger—the son of King Dareios II of the Achaemenid Empire and his wife Parysatis who governed the Achaemenid satrapy of Lydia and mounted an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to usurp the Achaemenid throne from his older brother Artaxerxes II, which culminated in him dying in late summer 401 BCE in the Battle of Kounaxa—by saying that he gladly rewarded anyone under his command who proved himself to be a δεινός administrator. He writes as follows in Ancient Greek:
“εἰ δέ τινα ὁρῴη δεινὸν ὄντα οἰκονόμον ἐκ τοῦ δικαίου καὶ κατασκευάζοντά τε ἧς ἄρχοι χώρας καὶ προσόδους ποιοῦντα, οὐδένα ἂν πώποτε ἀφείλετο, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ πλείω προσεδίδου: ὥστε καὶ ἡδέως ἐπόνουν καὶ θαρραλέως ἐκτῶντο καὶ †ὃ ἐπέπατο αὖ† τις ἥκιστα Κῦρον ἔκρυπτεν:”
This means, in my own translation:
“And, if he saw that someone was a δεινόν [the masculine singular accusative form of δεινός] administrator out of justice and fully equipped over the land which he ruled and making profits, he never took away from that man, but rather always gave him more so that he labored with pleasure and accumulated wealth with courage and, furthermore, someone who acquired never hid it from Kyros.”
Once again, in this context, the word δεινός has a markedly positive denotation of administrative competence.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing a portrait of an unknown Achaemenid satrap, possibly Kyros the Younger, whom Xenophon praises in his Anabasis, on a coin minted in Phokaia sometime between c. 478 and c. 387 BCE
The Athenian tragic playwright Sophokles (lived c. 497 – c. 405 BCE) plays on the polysemy of the word δεινός in the first line of his famous “Ode to the Human Being,” which the chorus recites in his tragedy Antigone, lines 334–375. Line 334 reads as follows, in the original Attic Greek:
“πολλὰ τὰ δεινὰ κοὐδὲν ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.”
This means, in my own translation:
“There are many formidable things, but nothing exists that is more formidable than a human being.”
Part of what makes the ode so compelling in the original Greek is the fact that it can be read as either a paean to humanity’s intelligence and ingenuity or a warning and a condemnation of humanity’s inventive exploitation and cruelty. This aspect of the poem is extremely difficult for translators of the play to render in English.
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons showing an Attic black-figure olpe attributed to the Amasis Painter, painted sometime between c. 550 and c. 530 BCE, found on the Greek island of Rhodes and now held in the British Museum in London, depicting a man returning from the hunt with his hunting dog
Conclusion
The Greek word δεινός is highly polysemous and no word in English can ever perfectly encapsulate all its various possible meanings, but, in my personal opinion, the word “formidable” generally reflects the word and its diverse meanings more accurately than “terrible” does.
If something is described as “terrible” in English, that is always a bad thing. If something is described as “formidable,” on the other hand, that could be either good or bad, depending on whether the formidability is on one’s side. It’s bad if you have to face a “formidable” enemy or “formidable” circumstances, but it’s good if you yourself are “formidable” at something.
For this reason, I think that the word dinosaur is more accurately translated as “formidable lizard” than “terrible lizard.”
Thank you!
You’re welcome! I’m glad that you appreciate my post!
How much do you know about dinosaurs?
I know a decent amount about dinosaurs and I enjoy learning about them, but I am very far from being any kind of expert, even an amateur one.
You are by no means the first to notice this. For example, see https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780253333490/page/n12/mode/2up (cited in the Wikipedia article you mentioned) and https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-dinosaurs-got-their-name.html
Thanks for pointing these out!
Dear Spencer,
Somehow it’s always a pleasure for me to read your essays, even though our interests seldom intersect. I admire good scholarship and zeal for getting things right.
I appreciate the snares of translation, and your treatment of the word “dinosaur” strikes me as right on target. I’ll go further than that. Even in English, “terrible” doesn’t always have negative overtones.
My favorite poet is Percy Bysshe Shelley, and I set many of his poems to music. His poem “Time” uses the word “terrible” just as you might suppose, ending with these lines:
“Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, who shall put forth on thee, unfathomable sea?”
Yours,
Danny
Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I also appreciate you sharing the quote from Shelley. By sheer coincidence, I just happened to listen to his wife Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus for the first time as an audiobook this past weekend and I very much enjoyed it.
Thank you, Spenser–I almost got ahead of myself and called you Dr McDaniel. I sorry but think formidable has the wrong connotations for the vicious creatures we are wanting to talk about here. The previous comment made this same point, I think. Without launching into a long discussion of formidable, I’m just going to say formidable typically reference a quality or skill we approve of, not which I can identify in dinosaurs.
I don’t think that the word formidable usually implies approval. It only implies some quality that induces fear, awe, dread, impressment, wonder, and/or astonishment.
In any case, regardless of whether you personally think it is fitting to describe a dinosaur as “formidable,” the fact of the matter is that “formidable” is a translation that much more accurately captures the polysemic nuance of the Greek word δεινός than “terrible” does.
Very interesting article, as usual!
I believe that δεινός might be decently translated as the *older* senses of ‘awful’, which were ‘terrifying’ and ‘awe-inspiring’, maybe!
Yes, I completely agree with you there. The difficulty in translating it as “awful” today, though, is that the word “awful” has changed so that it is now used almost exclusively negatively, just as the words “awesome” and “terrific” have changed so that they are now used almost exclusively positively.
This was interesting, since I cannot read Greek I didn’t know much about the meaning of the word before. I think the Epicharmus line is not the best example, since the joke could be interpreted as “You’re not bad at speaking, but you are a chatterbox”, but Xenophon really shows it is not always to be translated as “terrible”. I guess the most close English translation might be “terrific” since it can both mean scary and good
To be honest, I picked the Epicharmos quote primarily because I found it amusing, so it’s possible that that one isn’t the best example. It is perfectly clear, though, from how the phrase “δεινὸς λέγειν” is used by other authors in other contexts that it means “formidable at speaking” or “highly skilled at speaking.”
The reason I prefer the translation of δεινός as “formidable” rather than “terrific” is because I think that, in contemporary usage, the word “terrific” carries almost exclusively positive meanings, while “formidable” can in some contexts carry negative meanings.
Good points! Since I am not a native speaker and rather seldom speak English (unlike reading or writing in it) I am not always aware of how English words are used in daily or contemporary speech
In modern translations of certain works I’ve seen the word “awesome” used in place of “terrible”, which makes sense as these days as the word “terrible” in English usually means something really bad.
The reason why I prefer the translation of δεινός as “formidable” rather than “awesome” is because I think that, in contemporary usage, the word “awesome” carries almost exclusively positive meanings, while the word “formidable” can have negative meanings in some contexts.
Depends on context.
Still more accurate than metoh kangmi = ‘abominable snowman’
I seem to remember reading somewhere that the name of Leonidas’ wife — Gorgo — comes from a root word meaning “terrible.” (Ancient Greek names seem to be related to American Indian names in that way; they all mean something, they aren’t just random syllables strung together.) Is Gorgo a formidable woman, or a terrifying woman, then? Ha!
A post on the meaning of Greek names would actually be very fascinating, esp. with famous examples from history. Just a suggestion! Keep the scholarship coming!
Thank you for the complements on my work! The name Γοργώ (Gorgṓ), however, comes from the adjective γοργός (gorgós), which is an entirely different word from δεινός (deinós) with its own set of meanings. γοργός can mean “terrible,” “grim,” or “fierce.”
Ah! Very helpful, thanks for the clarifications and explanations. I will annotate some of my books accordingly!
Most names in all languages have meaningful etymologies. It’s just not as clear in languages like English because many are loans, and/or have undergone sound changes that make their relation to related words less obvious. “Kevin,” for example, ultimately comes from Old Irish Cóemgen, meaning “homely birth.”
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kevin
Ah. And that presents the question of the meaning of “homely” in this context! The modern American definition of “plain” or “unattractive”, or what I perceive as the older British term meaning “home-like,” “comfortable” — see Tolkien’s description of Elrond’s place at Rivendell as “The Last Homely House” . First example that came to mind!
In this case, it’s used in the positive sense of “dear.” In fact, Old Irish cóem is ultimately related to the English word “home”, both descended from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóymos!
That is terrific! Thank you, extremely learned cabbage!
Somewhere I got the idea that the “dino” in dinosaur meant loud (as in din) and dinosaur meant thunder-lizard.
You’re confusing the word dinosaur with the name brontosaurus, which actually does mean “thunder lizard.” It comes from the Greek word βροντή (brontḗ), meaning “thunder,” plus the word σαῦρος (saûros), which is a less common alternate form of σαύρα (saúra), which means “lizard” or “reptile.”
Less common in Ancient Greek, but more common in taxonomy: Dinosaur names usually use the masculine σαῦρος, but some use the feminine σαύρα, like Maiasaura and Leallynasaura.
You are right in the nose, Spencer, and I have spent 35 years telling my pupils (and anyone else who listened) that the word δεινός is not simply ‘terrible’, but rather something like ‘outstanding’ or ‘remarkable’. Richard Owen named the unknown skeleton thus, because he recognised that it came from something lizard-like, but far more unusual than any lizard yet known.
Sorry, ‘right *on* the nose’. Predictive texting, eh?
The Greeks themselves had problems over this word or at least one Greek did – Prodicus – who taught Socrates. This is what Plato depicts Socrates as saying in the Protagoras. This is Jowetts translation and he uses awful as a translation for deinos
“and I must correct you, as Prodicus corrects me when I use the word “awful” (deinon)as a term of praise. If I say that Protagoras or any one else is an “awfully” wise man, he asks me if I am not ashamed of calling that which is good “awful”; and then he explains to me that the term “awful” is always taken in a bad sense, and that no one speaks of being “awfully” healthy or wealthy, or “awful” peace, but of “awful” disease, “awful” war, “awful” poverty, meaning by the term “awful,” evil.”
Well-found, Mark. However, I detect the possiblility of a ‘figura etymologica’ here; that is, that Socrates (or Plato!) is deriving δεινός from δείδω (deído = I fear).
Spencer:
I am far from a dinosaur expert (or from any other terrible or formidable lizard, so to speak) or even from Greeks, Romans, etc., but I find that the word “terrible” could also be used in the context of “formidable” depending on the situation. Actually, from your text, it appears that either Richard Owen wanted to mean “terrible” or “formidable” which I think applies both ways to these species.
Really, does it make big difference spending words and words to dig into such a formidable/terrible aspect of the word dinosaur? While reading your text (by the way, well written and well researched as usual), it came to my mind the infinite and sterile discussions Jewish priests of Christ’s time were having in the temples about the meaning of this or that word without realizing their time would be more proficuous if used in practical ways like helping people.
If you allow me, I would suggest going deeper into the real meaning of Socrates’ teachings (among many others) and their significance in terms of Philosophy, Religion, Science, etc.
Keep going with your work.
Thanks.
Bressan
I like to write posts about etymology every so often for three main reasons. The first is because it’s a topic that I already know a lot about, thanks in part to the fact that I spent four years in undergrad studying Ancient Greek and Latin, so posts on the subject are usually relatively quick and easy for me to write. Sometimes I need a topic to write about that is quick and easy. This month in particular, I haven’t had much time to write so far because I’ve been busy moving across the U.S. from Indiana to Massachusetts.
The second reason why I write these kinds of posts is because I personally find the origins and histories of words and phrases deeply fascinating and I really enjoy writing posts on the subject. The third and final reason is because I write so much on this blog about politically salient topics that sometimes I just need a break from the politics and controversy. At the same time, though, I want to keep my posts interesting and relatable to contemporary readers. Etymology, in my view, is a subject that always has immediate contemporary relevance (due to the fact that people use words constantly on a daily basis) and, at the same time, tends to be relatively uncontroversial most of the time.
Finally, I appreciate your comment and I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but I feel I should gently point out that your remark in which you contrast “Jewish priests” unfavorably with Jesus comes across (to me at least) as supercessionist and borderline antisemitic in the way it seems to portray Jewish people as ignorant and Christianity as a superior replacement to Judaism. You cannot realistically demand that any person dedicate every second of their existence toward helping others in practical ways.
Jesus certainly didn’t dedicate every second of his existence toward helping others in practical, tangible ways; all the canonical gospels agree, for instance, that he spent quite a significant portion of his time doing things like drinking and eating, attending weddings, sleeping, hanging out with his followers, and going away to isolated places to pray and meditate alone. Indeed, one contemporary or near-contemporary criticism of Jesus was that he supposedly spent too much time eating, drinking, and hanging out with supposed undesirables such as prostitutes and tax collectors (gMatthew 11:19; gLuke 7:34). If you’re going to blame “Jewish priests” for not spending all their time helping others in practical ways, you also have to blame Jesus for doing the same thing.
Additionally, “Jewish priests” are far from the only people who have spent a great deal of time discussing the precise meanings of words and passages of scripture. Indeed, if this is a fault, then Christians are, if anything, even more guilty of it than Jews. Ancient and medieval Christians had countless extremely heated and even violent fights over matters of theology, which frequently hinged on extremely minute differences in interpretation over a few words or passages of scripture. I mean, early Christians had one extremely heated and vicious theological controversy over whether the Father and the Son are ὁμοούσιος (which means “of the same substance”) or ὁμοιούσιος (which means “of similar substance”). The difference between “orthodoxy” and “heresy,” between eternal salvation and eternal torment, became literally a difference of one tiny letter.
Ah yes, the origin of the expression, “not one iota of difference” comes from this notorious controversy that irreparably damaged relations between the churches of the Roman Catholic West and the Orthodox East.
> Ancient and medieval Christians had countless extremely heated and even violent fights over matters of theology
And Early Modern Christians too, in a different way but with the same zeal. Just think about how delicate the creation of the King James version was, so as not to upset the myriads of branches of Protestant Christianity that had sprung up.
Teaching people about words and their origins does help them.
…. so… more like the French “formidable” than the Welsh “ofnadwy” ?
What about deinonychus? I guess it could even mean “wicked awesome claw.”