Vocabulary - toxic

The first recorded bow is recorded in the so-called Linear B, the first Greek script, but the word must be a loanword from Iranian while the root of the word came from Scythia. At that time, it did not exist, the bow was Hellenized, its good operator was toxic , and when weapon systems evolved, it was the one who shot arrows dipped in poison. Then, when the device became a museum exhibit, the adjective, with the mediation, as usual, of the Latin toxicus = poisonous, continued its autonomous, international and brilliant career, so brilliant that the Oxford English Dictionary declared it the word of the year in 2018.

It is interesting that this year in more than 600 news programs on CNN and on the Internet the word starred to describe from labors and idle talk (idle talk, nonsense) the polarizing and extreme rhetoric of political confrontation. The spectrum of metaphorical use now seems to be much broader than the chemical literal for plastics, waste, etc. The relatively new toxicity threatens to imprison its older, and equally effective, relatives, such as malice, malice, wilfulness and other treasures of the Greek language.

Greek Language Center, Sunday, March 9, 2025