poet

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈpəʊ.ɪt/, /ˈpəʊ.ət/ (UK); /ˈpoʊ.ət/, /ˈpoʊ.ɪt/ (US)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French poete and directly borrowed from Latin poēta (“poet, author”),^[2][3][4] from Ancient Greek ποητής (poētḗs, “maker, author, poet”), a variant of poiētḗs, from ποιέω (poiéō, “to make, create, compose”),^[2][3][5] which Watkins traces to PIE Proto-Indo-European *kʷey- (“to pile up, build”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A writer of poems: before 1300 in the OED, before 1325, in Cursor Mundi, in Barnhart;^[6][2] Poet is a surname from about 1200.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 14th century, as in classical languages, poet was used of any writer or author (1362).^[6][3] Word Origins notes that a poet is literally a maker, and Puttenham (1589) called the poet a maker.^[5][3] It replaced Old English scop.^[3] A writer of great imaginative power, in an emphatic sense, is from 1530.^[6] Poetic justice comes from Pope's Dunciad (1742).^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – Poet, as a surname.^[2]
• before 1300 – a writer of poems.^[6]
• 1362 – any author.^[6]
• 1530 – a highly imaginative writer.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who writes poems.
2. A person with great imagination or creative sensitivity.

Word family

• poetless
• poetlike
• nonpoet
• poetaster
• poetess
• poetical
• poetize
• concrete poet

Related words

• poesy
• poetry
• poem
• poetic
• onomatopoeia

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press