Composed nearly 2,700 years ago, Homer’s epic poem "The Odyssey" is one of the oldest surviving stories in history. It’s unsurprising, then, that a number of words and phrases can be traced back to the work, which tells the story of Odysseus’ 10-year journey back home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Along the way, he confronts and overcomes monsters, sea creatures and gods, while his wife and son battle to keep his throne.
Tracing modern expressions back to the poem is not always straightforward and scholars continue to debate which phrases can genuinely be credited to Homer. "The Odyssey" was likely composed as part of an oral tradition and was originally recited in an ancient form of Greek that has not been spoken for more than 2,000 years. It has since been translated into Latin, English and hundreds of other languages across the world.
According to Jaclyn Neel, an assistant professor of Greek and Roman studies at Carleton University, it’s hard to know what has “come from a translator taking Homer’s ideas and putting them into their language.”
What’s not up for debate, though, is the longevity of "The Odyssey." “It speaks to the basic human experience,” explains Daniel Mendelsohn, author of An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic and his own translation of the poem. “It's about the urgent desire to get home and to belong somewhere, as well as the competing urge to have adventures. That's something everyone navigates. 'The Odyssey' gives us both of those contradictory urges and experiences.”
Here are six phrases and words that likely originated from or were inspired by Homer's masterpiece.
