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pope

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /pəʊp/, US /poʊp/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English pope, inherited from Old English pāpa,[2][3][4] borrowed from Latin pāpa (“bishop, pope”) (in classical Latin “tutor”),[2][3] from Ancient Greek πάπας (pápas, “patriarch, bishop”), a later form of πάππας (páppas, “father”).[2][4][5] See papa.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Bishop of Rome as head of the Roman Catholic Church: before 900, in Alfred's translation of Bede.[6][3]

Semantic evolution

The title was applied to bishops of Asia Minor and taken by the Bishop of Alexandria about 250.[2] In the Western Church it was used especially of the Bishop of Rome from Leo the Great (440–461), and claimed by them alone from 1073.[2][7] The spelling pope replaced pape before 1200;[3] papal and papacy, later borrowings, keep the original vowel.[2][5] The spiritual head of another religion is from about 1400,[6] and a person with authority like a pope's, figuratively, from 1589.[6] An effigy of the pope burnt on Guy Fawkes Night is from 1673.[6] Pope's nose, the fleshy tail of a bird, is from 1895,[2] and popemobile from 1979.[2]

Timeline

  • before 900 – the Bishop of Rome.[6]
  • c. 1400 – a head of another religion.[6]
  • 1589 – figurative use.[6]
  • 1895 – pope's nose.[2]
  • 1979 – popemobile.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. (often Pope) The bishop of Rome, head of the Roman Catholic Church.
  2. The patriarch of Alexandria, in the Coptic and Greek Orthodox churches.
  3. A person thought to have the highest authority in some field.

Word family

  • popeless
  • popelike
  • popery
  • protopope
  • antipope
  • popedom
  • popish
  • black pope
  • papal
  • papacy
  • papist
  • papa

Usage notes

A pope is also a parish priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, from Russian pop, from the mid-17th century.[7][4] In English dialect pope was a name for the bullfinch and for the ruff, a small perch-like fish.[8][6]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)