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Apr 1, 2020
This week’s themeWords coined after mountains and hills This week’s words Olympian balkanize Areopagus Everest Pelion 
The Areopagus, as viewed from the Acropolis
Photo: O. Mustafin / Wikimedia
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu GargAreopagus
PRONUNCIATION:
(ar-ee-AHP/OP-uh-guhs)
MEANING:
noun: A high court.
ETYMOLOGY:
Via Latin, from Greek Areios pagos (hill of Ares, the Greek god of war),
from Areios (of Ares) + pagos (hill), from pegnunai (to fasten or stiffen).
In ancient Greece, Areios pagos was the site where the highest governmental
council met. Later it turned into a judicial body. Earliest documented use:
1642.
USAGE:
“In a sense the Irish church is approaching an Areopagus of its own.
We are called before the bar of true faith.” Paschal Scallon; Letters; America (New York); Sep 10, 2007. See more usage examples of Areopagus in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried
from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy:
animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a
debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. -Milan Kundera,
novelist, playwright, and poet (b. 1 Apr 1929)
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