Etymologically
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python

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈpaɪθən/[1]
  • US: /ˈpaɪθɑn/, /ˈpaɪθɔn/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin Pȳthōn,[2][3][4] from Ancient Greek Πύθων (Pū́thōn), the name of the serpent that Apollo killed near Delphi.[2][4][5] The Greek name is evidently related to Πυθώ (Puthṓ), the old name of Delphi, though how is unclear, and so is its further origin.[2][6][7] Ancient writers linked both with πύθω (púthō, “to make rot”), because the serpent was said to have rotted there, but the OED notes that the length of the vowel is against this,[2][5] and Etymonline mentions a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewb- (“deep, hollow”), for monsters that live in the depths.[4][8] The zoological sense comes from Python, the name of a genus given by F. M. Daudin in 1803;[2] Barnhart and Etymonline think the English word came by way of French.[6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The serpent or monster slain by Apollo near Delphi: c. 1390, in Chaucer's Manciple's Tale, where it is spelt Phitoun.[2][4] Barnhart and Etymonline date the classical form Python to 1590 and the 1580s.[6][4]

Semantic evolution

In 17th- and 18th-century poetry a python could be any monster or plague.[9][10] The word was used for a genus of large snakes from the early 19th century: the OED's first quotation is from the Encyclopædia Metropolitana (a1825), Merriam-Webster dates the sense to about 1825, and Barnhart and Etymonline to 1836.[2][11][6][4] Etymonline notes that it was loosely used for any very large snake before it settled on the non-venomous snakes of the tropics that kill by constriction.[4] At the end of the Second World War Python was the code name of a scheme that gave long-serving British troops overseas home leave (1945).[2][10] In 1969 the BBC comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus gave the language Pythonesque, surreal or absurd, by the mid-1970s.[5][9]

Timeline

  • c. 1390 – Phitoun, the serpent killed by Apollo.[2][4]
  • 1580s – the spelling Python for the serpent.[4][6]
  • 1803 – Python, a scientific genus name.[2]
  • a1825 – a large constricting snake.[2][11]
  • 1836 – Barnhart's and Etymonline's date for the snake.[6][4]
  • 1945 – the code name of a home-leave scheme for British forces.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. Any of various large, heavy-bodied, non-venomous snakes of Africa, Asia and Australia that kill their prey by constriction.
  2. (loosely) Any very large constricting snake, such as a boa or an anaconda.
  3. Python (Greek mythology) The huge serpent or dragon killed by Apollo at Delphi.

Word family

  • pythoness
  • pythonic
  • Pythian

Usage notes

A separate python, from Late Latin pȳthōn in the Vulgate and Ancient Greek πύθων (púthōn) in the New Testament, meant a familiar spirit with powers of prophecy, or a person possessed by one (from 1548); it is now a term of ancient history.[2][10][12]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.