hamartia means the tragic flaw of the protagonist in a literary tragedy. It carries an Arena rating of 1840, earned across 14 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, hamartia ranks #11 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #140 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #162 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words, #272 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words.
hamartia is pronounced /həˈmɑː.ti.ə/.
Why “hamartia” is a great word
Hamartia is the fatal error or misjudgment that sets the tragic hero upon the path to ruin. From Ancient Greek ἁμαρτία (hamartía, "tragic failure, sin"), from the verb ἁμαρτάνω (hamartánō, "to miss the mark, to err"), an archer's term for an arrow gone wide. Unlike "catharsis," which is the audience's purgative release, or "hubris," which is but one species of prideful arrogance, hamartia is the hidden fracture within the character's own soul. It is the king's unexamined trust, the general's tactical blind spot, the lover's righteous but ill-timed demand—the single, irrevocable step taken in profound self-assurance toward the precipice. It is not wickedness, but a flaw so intimately woven into the fabric of a great nature that to remove it would unravel the person entirely, leaving us not with a tragedy, but a cautionary tale about someone else.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek ἁμαρτία (hamartía, “tragic failure, sinful nature”), from the verb ἁμαρτάνω (hamartánō, “to miss the mark”).
noun
- The tragic flaw of the protagonist in a literary tragedy.e.g.“Creon's main hamartia was his excessive pride.”
- Sin.
- A focal malformation consisting of disorganized arrangement of tissue types.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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