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hybrid - word origin?
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I was wondering what the etymology of this word is. Most dictionaries mention the Latin 'hybrida'. What about the Ancient Greek word 'hybris' or 'hubris'? What is the connection between the Latin 'hybrida' and the Greek 'hybris'? The Online Etymology Dictionary mentions something about it, but the explanation is insufficient...
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Hybrid is from Latin hybrida/hibrida/ibrida meaning originally the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar...hence a 'mixed' creature or, later, plant. Hubris or, earlier, hybris is from Greek and means human presumption or pride in the face of the gods. There doesn't seem to be any direct connection between the words.
Interesting. Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary helpfully suggests that the Latin word 'hibrida/ hybrida' may be 'kindred' to the Greek word 'hybris' meaning 'unbridled, lawless, unnatural'. Quite like the idea that a crossbreed wasn't as tractable as a pure-bred.That makes a certain sense, since a pure- bred domestic animal has been bred to have certain characteristics to make it ideal for a particular purpose.
The word hybrid comes to us directly from the Latin word and hubris directly from the Greek.
The Romans used hybrida only for a mongrel, a hybrid and for ' one born of a Roman father and a foreign mother or of a freeman and a slave' [ibidem] The 'kindred' hybris and the word hubris may be of different origin in Greek itself, but, on the other hand, 'hubris' originally meant 'presumption or insolence towards the gods' [OED]. That sounds like 'unbridled, lawless, unnatural' as in 'hybris' [supra] !
The word hybrid comes to us directly from the Latin word and hubris directly from the Greek.
The Romans used hybrida only for a mongrel, a hybrid and for ' one born of a Roman father and a foreign mother or of a freeman and a slave' [ibidem] The 'kindred' hybris and the word hubris may be of different origin in Greek itself, but, on the other hand, 'hubris' originally meant 'presumption or insolence towards the gods' [OED]. That sounds like 'unbridled, lawless, unnatural' as in 'hybris' [supra] !
Before you say anything, QM, I hadn't picked up that hybris and hubris were the same word, one spelling and pronunciation being of a different time to the other ! So there is a speculative connection, as made in Lewis and Short, between hybrida , our hybrid, and the Greek word but not exactly a proven definite and direct one.I have little Greek (and no access to the Greek dictionary equivalent to Lewis and Short !)
Thank you both for your comments. In the meantime, a Greek friend sent me a definition of the word 'hybrid' from a Greek dictionary. It seems that 'υβρίδιο' comes from the Latin hybrida/hibrida/ibrida, which in turn comes from the Greek hubris/hybris - 'ὕβρις'. 'Hybris' originally meant:
1. to go beyond the human nature and act superciliously;
2. impudence as a result of extreme passion or a sense of being excessively powerful
So, I understand that the word (the signifier, the sounds) circulated back and forth, with a changed spelling and apparently another meaning, more connected with biology rather than with morality. To continue this speculation, I wonder why Latin language lost this reference to having the power of going beyond the human nature, why this power was considered supercilious.
One reason could be that in Antiquity they did not have dictionaries. But perhaps there are other reasons too.
And then no wonder that English somehow lost this Greek origin. Even though definitions include not only meanings related to biology and order, but also to technology and to morality, the latter are not reflected by the Latin root.
The Greek source is here: http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html
1. to go beyond the human nature and act superciliously;
2. impudence as a result of extreme passion or a sense of being excessively powerful
So, I understand that the word (the signifier, the sounds) circulated back and forth, with a changed spelling and apparently another meaning, more connected with biology rather than with morality. To continue this speculation, I wonder why Latin language lost this reference to having the power of going beyond the human nature, why this power was considered supercilious.
One reason could be that in Antiquity they did not have dictionaries. But perhaps there are other reasons too.
And then no wonder that English somehow lost this Greek origin. Even though definitions include not only meanings related to biology and order, but also to technology and to morality, the latter are not reflected by the Latin root.
The Greek source is here: http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/index.html
Yes Ladorada, the idea of a presumptious act , a defiance of the gods, is in the Latin hybrida.
Educated Romans were familiar with Greek and Greek culture, much as educated Britons were once expected to know Latin and Greek.Those Romans would have encountered 'hybris' in Greek myths. And a man such as Pliny the Elder, who wrote a great natural history (in 37 volumes) would think to borrow this convenient Greek idea and word to describe what was like 'presumption or insolence towards the gods' {the Oxford English Dictionary's version of its ancient meaning] or 'impudence as a result of....a sense of being excessively powerful'. [your dictionary's version] So they borrowed the root word and Latinised it a bit by sticking the -da on, to make a completely new word, ' 'hybrida', a word for our 'hybrid'. The underlying idea is that man's mating of two creatures that would not be mated otherwise is a specific act contrary to natural order, the order of things as made and ordained by the gods, is sheer impudence. A hybrid is just that.
The Greeks, in due course, looking for a word for a biological hybrid looked no further than the vocabulary and writings of learned Romans, like Pliny, for it, and imported the 'new' word into Greek. English had the benefit of taking 'hybrid' from Latin and 'hubris' from Greek.
Educated Romans were familiar with Greek and Greek culture, much as educated Britons were once expected to know Latin and Greek.Those Romans would have encountered 'hybris' in Greek myths. And a man such as Pliny the Elder, who wrote a great natural history (in 37 volumes) would think to borrow this convenient Greek idea and word to describe what was like 'presumption or insolence towards the gods' {the Oxford English Dictionary's version of its ancient meaning] or 'impudence as a result of....a sense of being excessively powerful'. [your dictionary's version] So they borrowed the root word and Latinised it a bit by sticking the -da on, to make a completely new word, ' 'hybrida', a word for our 'hybrid'. The underlying idea is that man's mating of two creatures that would not be mated otherwise is a specific act contrary to natural order, the order of things as made and ordained by the gods, is sheer impudence. A hybrid is just that.
The Greeks, in due course, looking for a word for a biological hybrid looked no further than the vocabulary and writings of learned Romans, like Pliny, for it, and imported the 'new' word into Greek. English had the benefit of taking 'hybrid' from Latin and 'hubris' from Greek.
Ladorada ,I have, perhaps wrongly, guessed, from your post, that the Greek word now for our hybrid is hybridos.
Be that as it may, there's some irony in critics of modern science and medicine talking of 'interfering with nature' when, for example, these people interfere with genes and give us mice that glow in the dark or plants that kill their own pests. Another way of putting that is to say ' 'playing God' An ancient Greek would have had just the word for that. It's hybris ! We,living in a less classical age, never think to call it 'hubris'.
Be that as it may, there's some irony in critics of modern science and medicine talking of 'interfering with nature' when, for example, these people interfere with genes and give us mice that glow in the dark or plants that kill their own pests. Another way of putting that is to say ' 'playing God' An ancient Greek would have had just the word for that. It's hybris ! We,living in a less classical age, never think to call it 'hubris'.
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