![\"A](\"http:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/images\/blog\/tragicgoat.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
How is the word tragedy connected to goats and songs?<\/p>\n
The answer is that tragedy<\/strong> comes ultimately from the Ancient Greek word \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u1ff3\u03b4\u03af\u03b1<\/em> \u200e(trag\u014did\u00eda – epic play, tragedy) which comes from \u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2<\/em> \u200e(tr\u00e1gos – male goat) and \u1fa0\u03b4\u03ae<\/em> \u200e(\u014did\u1e17, – song). <\/p>\n Apparently the goat reference comes from satyrc drama, which featured actors dressed in goatskins playing satyrs. Or because at Athenian festivals a goat was given as a prize for the best play or performance, and then sacrificed, and a \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u1ff3\u03b4\u03af\u03b1<\/em> was a lament for the goat. <\/p>\n Another idea from Athenaeus of Naucratis (2nd\u20133rd century BC) is that the original form of the word was trygodia<\/em> from trygos<\/em> (grape harvest) and ode<\/em> (song), as the festivals took place during the grape harvest<\/p>\n Tragedy entered English during the 14th century as tragedie<\/em>, when it meant ‘a play or other serious literary work with an unhappy ending’. It came from the Old French tragedie<\/em>, from the Latin tragoedia<\/em> ([theatrical] tragedy). It came to mean an unhappy event, calamity or disaster at the beginning of the 16th century.<\/p>\n Sources: Wiktionary<\/a>, Online Etymology Dictionary<\/a>, Oxford Dictionaries<\/a>, English Word Information<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How is the word tragedy connected to goats and songs? The answer is that tragedy comes ultimately from the Ancient Greek word \u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03b3\u1ff3\u03b4\u03af\u03b1 \u200e(trag\u014did\u00eda – epic play, tragedy) which comes from \u03c4\u03c1\u03ac\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 \u200e(tr\u00e1gos – male goat) and \u1fa0\u03b4\u03ae \u200e(\u014did\u1e17, – song). Apparently the goat reference comes from satyrc drama, which featured actors dressed in goatskins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,118,10,15,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-greek","category-language","category-latin","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}