Definition of Sophocles

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Soph·o·cles    (sf-klz) KEY , 496?-406 b.c.

Greek dramatist. Together with Euripides and Aeschylus, he is considered one of the greatest dramatists of ancient Greece. His surviving plays include Ajax, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus.

OTHER FORMS:
Sopho·clean(Adjective)

WORD HISTORY:
Personal names like Sophocles and Pericles are compounds typical not only of Greek but also of other early Indo-European languages. Sophocles is formed from sophos, "wise" (as in philosophy, "love of wisdom"), and -kls, "glorious, famous," and thus means "having wise fame, famous for wisdom." The peri- in Pericles is a prefix that functions as an intensive adverb, so his name means "very famous, famous all around." The element -kls, "glorious, famous," appearing in these and other Greek names, comes from -kles, from an earlier klews. This itself is derived from the noun klewos (kleos in Classical Greek), "fame, glory." The Greek and Indo-European root is *kleu-, *klu- "to hear, hear much of, be famous." An adjective formed to this root, *klutos, "renowned," became *hluthaz, "famous," by Grimm's Law in Germanic. It appears as the first element of the Old High German name Hluodowg, "famous in battle," which was borrowed into Latin as Ludovcus, becoming Ludwig in modern German, Luigi in Italian, Clovis and later Louis in French, and Aloys in Provençal (more familiar in its Latin form, Aloysius). The Indo-European root *kleu- is also the ancestor of the word Slav, "the famous people," and of Slavic names ending in -slav, like Mstislav in Russian, "having vengeful fame," and Stanislaw in Polish, "famous for withstanding (the enemy)."