Dictionaries › Ancient Greek

τέλος

Pronunciation: /té.los/

“τέλος” is an Ancient Greek word. Its 16 meanings in English:

noun

  1. aim, purpose, end goal, design, final cause (as used by Aristotle and the philosophers; cf. teleology)
  2. completion, maturity, accomplishment, fulfillment, perfection, consummation
  3. result, product
  4. end
  5. end of life: death
  6. boundary, border, extremity
  7. supreme power
  8. the highest government office: magistrate
  9. that which is ordered to be done: task, duty
  10. money paid to the government: tax, toll
  11. a person's property, according to which he was classed
  12. thus, generally: rank, class
  13. unit of soldiers: legion, company
  14. initiation (especially into mystery religions)
  15. mystery religion
  16. any religious ceremony

Etymology

From Proto-Hellenic *kʷélos, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷél-os ~ *kʷél-es-. See Latin colō for more. Merger of two different roots: Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn; to revolve around”, yielding “turning point (of the field or race-course)”) and *telh₂- (“to bear; to endure”, yielding “levy (of a tax or army)”).

More Ancient Greek words

About this dictionary

The Ancient Greek dictionary on Glottosphere has 19,206 entries with a page. Browse the Ancient Greek dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.