Following on from yesterday’s discussion of the new movie version of Homer’s epic poem The Odessey—where does that title come from?
Well, the word ‘Odessey’ these days means (in addition to Homer’s original poem) ‘a long series of wanderings; a long adventurous journey’ (Oxford).
This the figurative (or extended) use of the word is often written with a lower-case ‘O’.
As for the word itself—it comes from the name of the hero of Homer’s poem, the king of Ithaca named ‘Odesius’ (also known as ‘Ulysses’—same person).
And the word itself seems to have a meaning (as names often do).
The name is derived from the ancient Greek word odousasthai meaning ‘to hate.’
We get our words ‘odium’ and ‘odious’ from the same source.
Odysseus was thought to be so called because he was ‘hated by gods and men.’
The Odyssey is an epic tale of the difficult ten-year return to Ithaca by Odysseus after the fall of Troy.
It’s one of the oldest known works of literature, written in Ancient Greek, and dating to perhaps 700 BC.
It is attributed to Homer, though details of the poet’s life and authorship are uncertain.
(One legend says that Homer was blind, and that he recited, or sang, his great poem from memory.)
The tribulations of the voyage include storms at sea and interference by various gods of the Greek pantheon, including Athena, Zeus, Hermes, and Poseidon.
The use of ‘odyssey’ to refer to anyone’s journey or quest dates only to the late 1800s in English, but the word was already found in Old English as the title of the epic poem.
A word based on a person’s name is called ‘an eponym’—so ‘Odessey’ as an eponym.
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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