Xenophanes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An ancient Greek philosopher and poet from Colophon who criticized human-like depictions of the gods in Homer and Hesiod
2. A sixth-century BCE Greek thinker from Colophon, known for mocking anthropomorphic images of deities and for early critiques of traditional religion
3. Pre-Socratic Greek poet and philosopher of Colophon, remembered for challenging the idea that the gods resemble human beings

Etymology: Xenophanes of Colophon was a Greek thinker who lived around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, and his name is a compound that reads almost like a description of his life. It combines "xenos", meaning "foreign" or "stranger", with "phainō", meaning "to appear" or "to show oneself", so the name means roughly "of foreign appearance." Greek names were often built this way, and this one suited a man who spent much of his life travelling and wandering away from his home city. The name was used as a personal name long before the philosopher, so the word is best understood as a proper noun that English borrowed directly from Ancient Greek, "Xenophánēs." Its meaning comes from the two parts rather than from any later sense, and the philosopher himself is the only real reason anyone in English now knows it.