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Gods, Heroes & Monsters
The pantheons and legends still hiding in everyday language.
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In Greek mythology, who is the king of the gods?
Myths Hiding in Everyday Words
Classical myth never really left the language. It went into the calendar, the map and the dictionary, and mostly stopped being noticed.
About this topic
When Greek and Roman stories stopped being anybody\'s religion, the names stayed in use as convenient labels. Roman gods had already been given the months and the planets; later, anatomists, mapmakers and chemists reached for the same stock of names because everyone educated still recognised them. The result is a layer of myth sitting inside ordinary vocabulary. A few of these connections are certain, and one or two are traditional rather than proven, which the explanations point out. The days of the week are the odd ones out here, because those gods are Norse rather than classical.
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Myths Hiding in Everyday Words: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1The word "panic" comes from which Greek god?
- A Hypnos
- B Pan Correct
- C Ares
- D Phobos
Answer: B. Pan
Why: Pan was blamed for the sudden groundless fear that could seize travellers in lonely country or send a herd stampeding for no reason. The Greek phrase was panikon deima, meaning fear of Pan.
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2January is named after which Roman god?
- A Janus Correct
- B Juno
- C Jupiter
- D Mars
Answer: A. Janus
Why: Janus was the god of doorways, beginnings and transitions, shown with two faces so he could look back and forward at once. Rome kept a gateway of Janus that was left open in wartime and shut in peace, which was recorded as happening very rarely.
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3Which day of the week takes its name from an Anglo-Saxon name for Odin?
- A Tuesday
- B Thursday
- C Friday
- D Wednesday Correct
Answer: D. Wednesday
Why: Wednesday is Woden's day, Woden being the English form of Odin. The neighbouring days work the same way: Tuesday for Tiw, Thursday for Thunor and Friday for Frigg.
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4The word "cereal" comes from the name of which Roman goddess?
- A Pomona
- B Vesta
- C Ceres Correct
- D Flora
Answer: C. Ceres
Why: Ceres was the goddess of grain and the harvest, and her name reached English in the early nineteenth century as a term for grain crops. The breakfast sense is later and American.
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5The Atlantic Ocean is named after which figure from Greek myth?
- A Triton
- B Atlas Correct
- C Oceanus
- D Poseidon
Answer: B. Atlas
Why: The Greeks called it the sea of Atlas, after the Titan condemned to hold up the sky at the western edge of the known world. The Atlas Mountains carry the same name, and so does a book of maps, because Mercator put an Atlas figure on the title page of his 1595 collection.
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6The continent of Europe is traditionally named after which figure from Greek myth?
- A Europa Correct
- B Io
- C Danae
- D Leda
Answer: A. Europa
Why: Europa was a Phoenician princess carried off to Crete by Zeus in the form of a bull. The link is the traditional explanation rather than a proven one, and scholars still disagree about where the continent's name actually came from.
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7In the most common version, how did Achilles come by the weak point named after him?
- A He was wounded there as a child and it never healed
- B A goddess cursed his heel for a broken promise
- C He was born mortal only in that one spot, as the son of a mortal father
- D His mother held him by the heel when she dipped him in the river Styx Correct
Answer: D. His mother held him by the heel when she dipped him in the river Styx
Why: The dipping story comes from the Roman poet Statius, not from Homer, where Achilles is simply a man who can be killed. The tendon at the back of the ankle was named after the legend by a Flemish anatomist in the 1690s.
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8In Hesiod's account of how the world began, what was Chaos?
- A The war between the gods and the Titans
- B The underworld river of forgetting
- C The gap that existed before anything else Correct
- D A flood that destroyed the first people
Answer: C. The gap that existed before anything else
Why: Hesiod puts Chaos first, with the earth appearing after it, and the Greek word means something closer to a chasm or gap than to disorder. The modern sense of confusion only became the main meaning centuries later.
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9The word "volcano" comes from the name of which Roman god?
- A Saturn
- B Vulcan Correct
- C Neptune
- D Mercury
Answer: B. Vulcan
Why: Vulcan was the god of fire and metalworking, and his forge was placed under the island of Vulcano off the north coast of Sicily. Smoke and noise from the island were read as the god at work.
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10The word "museum" originally described a place belonging to whom?
- A The Muses Correct
- B The household gods
- C The dead
- D The city council
Answer: A. The Muses
Why: A mouseion was a site sacred to the Muses, the nine goddesses associated with poetry, music, history and astronomy. The most famous was at Alexandria, a research institution that had the great library attached to it.
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Myths Hiding in Everyday Words has 10 questions and takes about 7 minutes to finish. It is rated Medium and sits in our Mythology & Folklore category.
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