

Jan 25, 2018 This week’s theme

Eponyms



This week’s words

fabian

stent

hymeneal

euhemerism

roland



Council of the gods (1517-1518) Art: Raphael Eponyms A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg



euhemerism PRONUNCIATION: (yoo-HEE-muh-riz-uhm, -HEM-)

MEANING: noun: The idea that gods are based on historical heroes whose stories became exaggerated in retelling.

ETYMOLOGY: After Euhemerus, a fourth-century BCE Greek writer, who proposed that the gods of mythology were based on real heroes whose accounts became exaggerated with time. Earliest documented use: 1846.

NOTES: In India, fans of some politicians and movie actors have built temples for them. But those are all lightweight deities. Look for the First Church of Stable Genius opening a place of worship near you. See here and here

USAGE: “I suspect that the scholarly assumption that somewhere beneath the legend there must lurk a real historical founder is a modern case of Euhemerism.”

Robert Price; Of Myth and Men; Free Inquiry (Buffalo, New York); Winter 1999/2000.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (25 Jan 1874-1965)





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