20 Everyday English Sayings and Idioms With Greek Origins

 

 

We all use lots of phrases and sayings in our everyday conversations, right?

Probably, we have a vague understanding of their meaning but, have we ever stopped to think from where they originate?

As around 150.000 words of the English language are derived from ancient Greek, it should come as no surprise then, that many sayings and idioms also have their roots in ancient Greek.

In fact, the word idiom itself, meaning a figure of speech, a phrase with figurative meaning, different from the literal meaning, comes from the Greek idiōma, meaning  private property –  peculiar phraseology, which comes from idiousthai, to make one’s own’, which in turn comes from idios, meaning  own –  private.

The majority of English sayings with Greek origins, have emerged from ancient Greek myths and stories, here are twenty of the most used English sayings and phrases with a decidedly Greek touch.

 

1. Achilles Heel

 

 

What is your Achilles Heel?

It’s your weak spot; we can blame Achilles, hero of the Trojan wars for this.

As a baby, Achilles’ mother, Thetis, dunked him in the River Styx, said to have the magical power of making people invulnerable, by holding him upside down by his heel.

Consequently, Achilles’ heel was the only part of his body to be kept dry and as it turns out, vulnerable, it was at this spot, according to Homer, in his work, The Iliad, a poison arrow, launched by Paris, one of the Trojans, hit Achilles, killing him instantly.

 

2. Herculean Task

 

 

Owing to the near impossible  12 strenuous labours bestowed on Hercules, of Greek mythology fame, any task deemed difficult, needing strength, time, or extra brain power, may be referred to as a Herculean task.

Hercules, son of Zeus and his girlfriend of the day, Alcemene, had a curse put upon his head, by the jealous wife of Zeus, Hera.

This curse caused Hercules to murder his wife and children, as a punishment, the King of Greece, Eurystheus, set Hercules twelve, nigh impossible tasks.

 

3. Beware of Greeks bearing gifts

 

 

‘Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes’ a Latin phrase from Aeneid, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, is the Trojan priest Laocoon’s warning, meaning beware of Greeks bearing gifts, used today as a warning to be careful about accepting gifts from enemies or opponents because you never know what may be lurking inside.

The Trojans, fighting against the Greeks during the ten-year Trojan war (10-12 century BC), learnt to their detriment the dangers of accepting gifts from the Greeks.

The Greeks, who had besieged the city of Troy, pretended to retreat, leaving behind them, outside the gates of the city, a large wooden horse.

The Trojans, assuming they had won the war and thinking the horse a gift, brought it inside the city, but those wily Greeks had hidden soldiers inside the horse, who sneaked out in the night, and captured the city of Troy.

 

4. Sour Grapes

 

 

The phrase, sour grapes, is used by someone who didn’t manage to obtain something which they wanted badly, or who is jealous of something someone else has managed to acquire, or achieve, and there after speaks critically and unfavourably about it.

Sour grapes originates from Aesop’s fable, the ‘Fox and the Grapes’, in which a fox spies a juicy bunch of grapes hanging from a tree, try as he might though, he can’t reach those grapes, gives up and walks off declaring, ‘never mind, just as well, they would have been sour anyway’.

 

5. Between a rock and a hard place

 

 

Between a rock and hard place, means the dilemma of having to choose between two evils.

In Homer’s Odyssey, the hero, Odysseus, must pass between two sea monsters, Charybdis, a treacherous whirlpool, and Scylla, a six-headed monster, who reside on opposite sides of the strait of Messina.

Odysseus chose to pass by Scylla, the lesser of the two evils, thinking he would lose fewer men, than passing through Charybdis, the whirlpool.

 

6. Pandora’s Box

 

 

Don’t let curiosity get the better of you, don’t go there, don’t ask, don’t mess with things, leave them alone, don’t open that Pandora’s box, you don’t know what you might be letting yourself in for, there may be unpredictable consequences!

 Pandora, the first mortal woman created by the gods, was a woman who would wreak havoc on earth, the catastrophe of mankind, who, up until now had been living the life of gods, as immortals, innocents, knowing not of birth and death, evil and hardships.

Pandora was desperate to open a box, presented to her by Zeus, as a wedding present, but her husband, Epimetheus, having been told by Zeus, what it contained, forbid her to do so.

Pandora’s curiosity got the better of her and while Epimetheus slept, she opened the box, letting all the evils of the World fly out.

 

7. The Midas touch

 

 

When we say someone has ‘The Midas Touch’, we are referring to someone who has great success in financial dealings; someone who succeeds in anything in puts his hand to, whatever he touches, turns to gold.

The saying comes from the Greek myth about Midas, the greedy king of Phrygia, in Asia Minor, who was granted a wish by Dionysus, god of the grape-harvest, winemaking and wine, of fertility,

Midas wished for everything he touched, to turn to gold, if only he had given more thought to his wish, literally, everything he touched, turned to solid gold, food, water, wine and most sadly of all, his precious daughter Zoe.

A true case of be careful what you wish for.

 

8. Leave no stone unturned

 

 

When searching for something you can’t find, to achieve something, make every effort, take every course of action; leave no stone unturned!

According to Greek history, a Persian general, Mardonius, during the Persian wars against Greece, when defeated, buried a large amount of treasure.

The victors, the Greeks, searched and searched but could not find the treasure and so, a certain Polycrates, as was done in those days, visited Pithia, the oracle at Delphi, who advised him to search again, and leave no stone unturned.

Pithia must have been good at her job; Polycrates searched again and reportedly found the treasure!

Another source of leave no stone unturned, is from ‘The Heraclidae’, children of Hercules, by ancient Greek playwright, Euripides, where King Eurystheus states, while searching for his enemies, whom also happen to be relatives;

‘Should I, whom am hated by these children, and aware of their inherited hatred for me, have left no stone unturned, in machinations to kill or exile?”.

 

9. Call a spade a spade

 

 

 

Call a spade a spade, also referred to as; let’s call a spade a spade and not a garden tool, meaning, call something by its name, however impolite, don’t beat about the bush, say it as it is.

The saying has its roots in ‘Apophthegmata Laconia’, a work by Plutarch, a Greek biographer and essayist (46 AD-120 AD), where he states, “call a fig a fig, and a trough a trough’’.

 

10. Spill the beans

 

 

To spill the beans, means to divulge a secret, either maliciously, or by accident.

In ancient Greece, the voting system was for people to cast secret votes by putting either a white bean (positive vote), or a black bean (negative vote), into a jar.

If the jar was knocked over, by accident, or other deceitful means, the secret was revealed, the beans were spilled.

 

11.  Touch Wood

 

 

The habit of knocking on, or touching wood, to avoid tempting fate, or to bring good luck, goes way back, thousands of years, to ancient Greece, where it was believed dryads, wood nymphs, lived inside trees.

The ancient Greeks would touch a tree, hoping to invoke good luck or protection from the wood nymphs dwelling within.

 

12. Cloud Cuckoo Land

 

 

Cloud Cuckoo Land is accredited to ‘The Birds’, a play, a comedy, by  ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes, performed in ancient Athens in 414 BC.

Cloud Cuckoo Land, in Aristophanes play, is “Nephelokokkȳgía”, the name of the land which separates humans and gods, a utopian city, an unrealistic, idealist, fantasy world.

 

13. Cry Wolf

 

 

The term ‘someone who cries wolf’, is given to an habitual liar, someone who tells the same lie, over and over again, someone you just can’t believe, a regular ‘Billy Liar’ of the highest degree and we all know, nobody believes an artful liar, even when they are telling the truth.

To ‘cry wolf’, is to raise a false alarm, and stems from Aesop’s fable, ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’, about a young shepherd, who, day after day, drove his fellow villagers crazy, by telling them the same story, that a wolf was attacking his sheep, which always turned out to be untrue.

After many false alarms and tremendous panic, the villagers decided to ignore the silly boy, and, then, one day it happened, the young shepherd actually cried the truth, his sheep were being attacked by a wolf but alas, owing to his constant lying, no one believed him and didn’t run to help, and all the poor sheep were killed.

 

14. Cassandra

 

 

To call someone a Cassandra, is to infer that they are full of doom and gloom and dwell on only the bad things in life, predicting death and disaster, of which no one takes any notice of.

In Greek mythology, Apollo, god of music, truth and prophecy, healing, the sun and light, plague, poetry, and much more, had the hots for Cassandra, daughter of Priam, King of Troy, she had totally mesmerised him, to further his chances with her, he bestowed upon her, the gift of prophecy.

Despite his gift, Cassandra shunned Apollo’s romantic advances, which really got his goat, in retaliation, Apollo placed a curse on his would-be lover, a curse which would ensure, that no one would believe her prophecies, or warnings of doom.

 

15. Resting on his laurels

 

 

Resting on his laurels, means someone, after receiving some accolade or badge of honour, for past efforts, has given up all efforts to better himself, has become lazy, and lives with the memory of his past glory.

In ancient Greece, laurel leaves were considered a symbol of victory, a status symbol, associated with the God Apollo.

Laurel wreaths were presented to victors of the Pythian Games (6th century BC).

 

16. Gordian knot

 

 

The Gordian knot; is an extremely difficult, complicated, intricate problem, solved in a creative manner.

In 333 BC, Alexander the Great, while marching through Anatolia, modern-day Turkey, arrived in the city of Gordium, where the founder, Gordius, a peasant farmer, who, years ago, had been declared king, when the oracle at Telmissus (the ancient capital of Lycia-Anatolia), had declared that the next man to enter the city on an ox cart, would be king.

In appreciation for this honour bequeathed to Gordius, his son, Midas, tied the cart to a pole, using an intricate knot, whoever, announced a local oracle, could unravel this complicated knot, would become ruler of all Asia.

Many were the men who battled with this elaborate knot, but to no avail, until that is, Alexander the Great, after struggling with the dratted knot, lost patience, thought outside the box, decided it did not matter how the knot was untied, and with one stroke of his sword, sliced through the knot, and, after conquering Asia, became ruler, fulfilling the prophecy.

 

17. Adonis

 

 

To liken or call a young man today an Adonis is to concede he is of the utmost physical beauty.

In Greek mythology, Adonis, a shepherd boy, who represented youth, beauty and desire, the mortal lover of the Goddess Aphrodite, was considered one of the most handsome men of ancient Greece, so attractive in fact, his name became a metaphor for male, physical beauty.

 

18. To blow hot and cold

 

 

The idiom, to blow hot and cold means to be inconsistent, to frequently change one’s mind.

This phrase, again, comes from one of Aesop’s fables, ‘The Satyr and the Traveller’; one winter’s day, a traveller happens upon a satyr (a mythical creature, half man, half goat), who invites the man into his house.

The traveller accepts, ‘will you eat with me’, asks the satyr, ‘with pleasure’, answers the traveller.

As the traveller awaits his meal, he blows on his cold hands, to warm them.

When hot food is put in front of him, the traveller blows upon it, to cool it, causing the satyr to exclaim, ‘I will have nothing to do with a man who blows both hot and cold with the same breathe’, and promptly threw the traveller out of his house.

 

19. Oedipus complex

 

 

The Oedipus complex is a two-part concept, introduced in 1899 by psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, who explained it as follows:

The positive, when a child has an unconscious, unnatural desire for the opposite-gender parent and the negative when a child’s unconscious desire is for the same-gender parent and hatred for the opposite-gender parent.’

Oedipus is a tragic character from Greek mythology who fulfills a prophecy when he unintentionally kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta, bringing catastrophe and misery upon his city and family.

Oedipus is the subject of a Greek tragedy; Oedipus Rex, written by ancient Greek playwright, Sophocles.

 

20. Wrong end of the stick

 

 

I saved the best one until last!

To get hold of the wrong end of the stick, is to totally misunderstand or misinterpret something, to get something completely wrong, and trust me, if you were living in ancient Greece, you certainly had to be careful not to get hold of the wrong end of the stick, read on!

In ancient Greece, as you can imagine, the luxury of toilet paper did not exist, in its place, was a sponge, or piece of cloth, tied to the end of a stick, and this, my friends, is what the ancient Greeks used to wipe their posteriors; literally, a case of sh*t on a stick!

To make matters worse, this stick seemed to be communal, as it was kept in a bowl of salt water, next to the hole in the ground; the lavatories of the day, so, you had to be very careful, when the stick was passed around, as needed, not to get hold of the wrong end!