greek

UK/ɡɹiːk/US/ɡɹiːk/

adjectiveB12 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #2,288 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: greeks

Greek is the language of Greece and the adjective for the country and its people. Ancient Greek, a Greek island, learn Greek.

It is always capitalised. Ancient Greek and modern Greek are related but not the same language, and studying one does not give you the other. Greek supplied English with an enormous share of its scientific and technical vocabulary — photograph, telephone, psychology, biology — usually through Latin. It is all Greek to me means it is completely incomprehensible, from a line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Definitions of greek

1adjectivegreekBelonging to Greece or its people.B1
“The Greek alphabet has twenty-four letters.”
2nounlanguageThe language of Greece.B1
“He read Greek at university and has not used it since.”

greek is a nationality or language.

Phrases it lives in

it is all Greek to me — I cannot understand a word of it

Where it comes from

The Greeks call themselves Hellenes and their country Hellas. Greek comes through Latin Graecus, apparently from the name of one small tribe the Romans met first, which stood in for the whole people ever after.

Built from

Greek · English — unintelligible speech or text

Probably from Greek (“unintelligible speech or text”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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