Aithiopians

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Members of peoples inhabiting ancient Ethiopia and surrounding regions of northeastern Africa, often mentioned in classical Greek and Roman texts
2. Inhabitants of ancient Axumite territories and the Horn of Africa, referenced by early Mediterranean writers as a distinct nation or ethnic group
3. People from the ancient kingdom and lands of Ethiopia, known to classical authors and representing a major civilization of antiquity

Etymology: Homer's "Odyssey" describes the gods feasting with the "blameless Aithiopians," a people so far off that they were called the most distant of men, and Zeus himself travels to join them. Greek writers placed them at the edge of the known world and used the name for dark-skinned peoples south of Egypt generally, not for any single nation. The name is a compound of "aithein," meaning to burn or scorch, and "ops," meaning face. It is a descriptive Greek coinage, something like "burnt-face" or "sun-scorched." The Latin "Aethiopes" carried it into European languages, and English "Ethiopian" comes from that Latin form. The Greek spelling "Aithiopians" survives mainly in translations and classical scholarship.