The Greek god of medicine and healing, light, truth, archery, colonists, prophecy, herds and flocks, music, poetry, and the sun. The origin of his name is uncertain, though there are many possibilities — apollumi, “the destroyer”; apolusis, “redeem”; apolousis, “purification”; aploun, “simple” or “unity”; aei-ballon “ever-shooting”; and apella “assembly”. The name may also be from the ancient Hittite diety Aplu, a god of healing, who may in turn have come from the Akkadian sun god Aplu Enlil, whose name meant literally “son of Enlil”, Enlil being one of the chief Sumerian gods. If this is the case, Apollo’s worship goes back to the dawn of Middle Eastern civilization.

Apollo’s name indicates Source energy that expands from a point to fill volume, like light; the result is a grounded, wholesome power.

Thanks to Mahud for the beautiful illustration!

Week comes from Proto Indo European weik, “to bend, to turn”, also the ancestor of wicket, wicker, weak, and vicarious. The idea apparently was that a week was a “turn” of the calendar. The word became wikon in Proto Germanic and wice in Old English; and it was in Old English times, under influence from the Romans, that wice was first used to mean “week”. It is not known whether the ancient Germanic tribes had any unit of time corresponding to a “week”, though the undoubtedly had months (based on the moon) and years (based on the sun). A Norse calendar from about 800 AD has been discovered with five-day weeks called fimmts, with six fimmts in each of twelve months, plus five ceremonial days not part of any month; but the fact that there are twelve months (rather than thirteen) shows probable Roman influence.

The Roman week — with seven days, each named after a Roman deity — began around the same time as the rise of the Imperium of Rome, and seems to have been adopted from the Egyptian seven-day week. Around the same time, Christianity was beginning to spread, and it had a built-in seven-day week as well; but even when the Roman Empire became officially Christian, the weekday names were never divorced from the heathen gods. The seven-day week was in use in Egypt and throughout the Middle East and India for thousands of years before the Romans arrived; apparently it was based on one fourth of the 28-day lunar cycle.

When the Anglo-Saxons adopted the Roman week, they tried to map the Roman deities on to their own. Unfortunately, the two pantheons had quite different structures, so the mapping is rather strained in places. For example, the Roman dies Martis, “Marsday”, was “translated” into Tiwesdæg, “Tiw’s Day”, even though Tiw wasn’t really a war god, but a god of sacrifice, honor, and swordsmanship. The real god of war, Woden (Odin), however, was also the ruler of messengers and divine inspiration; so he was matched up with Mercury for Wednesday.

The modern word week indicates a period of challenges, endurance, and the will to overcome them. It might be best considered a self-contained cycle of worldly effort.

From Latin honorem, “honor, dignity, reputation”. No one knows where honorem comes from. The adjectival form was honestus, which became honeste in Old French, and honest in English around 1300.

Honest is one of the few words in the standard North American English dialect group that is spelled with an initial silent “h” (others are honor, herb and heir). Dropping initial “h” is common in most modern dialects of English, but there are a few dialects — like American English — that hold on to it for most words. (However, standard American English does pronounce the final “r” in honor, while most other English dialects do not — leaving honor to be pronounced “ON-ah”.)

Energetically, honest begins with Source energy that is directed, narrowed toward a target of communication, with an aspect of directed, purposeful energy. This seems like a marvelous fit: the Source energy is the Truth, which, in the honest person, is the goal of communication.

Thanks to Nio for suggesting this word of the day!