Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Word of the Day

Welcome to our new feature: Word of the Day.  Brought to you (usually) by Tim Burns, communications director here and all around nerd word guy.  I have several degrees in English that are going to waste so Steve thought it might be a good idea to try and dust off my brain cells and give this a go.  So today's word, in taking a cue from yesterday's run around the Castles & Crusades Facebook page, is "Griffin".  Alternately spelled "Griffon" or "Gryphon", it is defined as: A mythical animal typically having the head, forepart, and wings of an eagle and the body, hind legs, and tail of a lion.  It's first known use was in the 1300's, though I can not find a verifiable source for that claim.  It does come from the Greek "--gryps" and Latin "--gryphus", then later Anglo-French "--grif" and finally in Middle English "griffin" or as it is widely seen, "griffon".  

But that tells only a part of the story because the word, much like the mythology that surrounds it, it shrouded, well, in mythology and mystery.   A griffin is said to sometimes have the tail of a snake instead of a lion, sometimes it's defined has having the wings of a hawk.  In short, it has been used throughout time and history to mean any sort of creature (though always winged from what i can tell) that has the aspects of both a large animal and a bird of prey.  

A few more random facts about Griffins: They are usually considered heroic and are well known for their speed.  In hieroglyphics, griffins represent heat and summer. In Assyria, both the griffin and the dragon were symbols of knowledge and wisdom. In Roman art, griffins are often pulling the chariot of the goddess of justice and revenge, Nemesis (also an interesting word derivation I was unaware of).

And despite wide speculation on the C&C Facebook page, I can find no "group name" for Griffins, like a murder of crows, herd of elephants, etc.  So I'll add my 2 cents worth and go with "gathering of griffins".  Has a nice alliterative ring to it.

If you have any suggestions for the word of the day, please post them here and I'll try to get to them.  They will run the gamut from game related to food, to whatever catches my eye, so if you think of something, let me know.  Thanks!  Tim

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