septuagint
/sɛpˈtu.ə.d͡ʒənt/
septuagint · name — the team of translators who produced the Septuagint. It carries an Arena rating of 1498, earned across 38 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, septuagint ranks #688 of 17,167 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,152 of 17,146 for Most Storied Words, #2,066 of 17,130 for Most Ponderous Words, #4,378 of 17,163 for Most Sublime Words.
septuagint is pronounced /sɛpˈtu.ə.d͡ʒənt/.
Why “septuagint” is a great word
SEPTUAGINT — [Name] The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, produced in Alexandria from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE. From Late Latin Septuaginta, meaning 'The Seventy,' a calque of Koine Greek names like οἱ ἐβδομήκοντα ἑρμηνευταί (the 70 interpreters), referring to the legendary number of its translators. Unlike the 'Masoretic Text' (the authoritative medieval Hebrew version) or the 'Vulgate' (the definitive 4th-century Latin translation), the Septuagint is the diaspora's whispered conversation, a bridge between a covenant and an empire. It is the rustle of papyrus in the great library of Alexandria, the ghost of Hebrew consonants cloaked in Greek vowels, and the text from which a Mediterranean God would speak to philosophers and apostles—a testament to how sacred words must migrate to survive.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From Late Latin Septuaginta, lit. "The Seventy", a clipping of earlier descriptional names such as septuaginta translatio (“translation by the seventy”) and septuaginta interpretes (“the 70 interpreters”), calques of Koine Greek names such as οἱ ἐβδομήκοντα ἑρμηνευταί (hoi ebdomḗkonta hermēneutaí, “the 70 interpreters”) and οἱ Ο′ (hoi O′, “the LXX”), deriving from the popular (but probably mistaken) belief that its translation of the Torah had been produced in 72 days by a team of 72 Jewish scholars from Jerusalem (6 from each tribe) summoned to Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy II.
name
- The team of translators who produced the Septuagint.
- An influential Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible produced in Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE.
noun
- A group of 70 people or a collection of 70 things.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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