Learning new words is a good exercise. We, at MBAUniverse.com have discussed various interesting and fruitful ways to learn new words. In this article, Sidharth Balakrishna, CAT expert, author and IIM Calcutta alumnus will discuss how to improve your vocabulary through knowing interesting stories of their origin. “Very often, you may find that you remember the story more than the meaning per se-and that it is the story that helps you recall the meaning of the word,” says Balakrishna.

It can be observed that Greek mythology has a huge role in the origin of several words. Balakrishna has shared such words and their interesting stories of origin.

Promethean:  This word comes from the Greek hero ‘Prometheus’. Prometheus, a great hero of mankind, is supposed to have stolen fire from the Gods and brought it for mankind’s use. Fire was clearly of vital importance to ancient man.
Hence the word ‘Promethean’ means ‘life-giving’, creative, original.

The famous story of Prometheus can be found in the Greek tragedy called Prometheus Bound. In this drama, Prometheus' theft of fire and his punishment by Zeus are described.

Spartan: Sparta was a Greek city-state in ancient times. It was always at war with Athens, another city-state (and today’s capital of Greece), where the famous Parthenon is situated.

As a result, the inhabitants of Sparta had to always be prepared for war and evolved to be extremely battle-ready, disciplined, tough and austere in their lifestyle.

The word ‘Spartan’ thus means ‘austere’, plain, frugal.

Laconic: This is another word which has come up from the name of a place, ‘Laconia’. The inhabitants of this place were known to speak very little.

The word ‘Laconic’ therefore refers to one who uses few words, is concise and doesn’t speak much. Synonyms are taciturn, pithy, terse; antonyms are garrulous, verbose, loquacious etc.

There is a famous example of the usage of this word. Philip of Macedon was supposed to have once written to the Spartans “If I enter Laconia, I will level Lacedaemon to the ground “. The Spartans, true to their style, chose to reply with a single word “If”.

Stentorian: It comes from the name of a person. In Greek mythology, Stentor was a herald of the Greek armies. Being a herald, Stentor had an extremely loud voice. Hence the meaning of the word: ‘Stentorian’ means loud, booming etc.

You will find many such words which have their origins from mythology. MBAUniverse.com will come up with such other words in our following articles.

Stay tuned to MBAUniverse.com for more on CAT 2010 preparation.