Google’s info from Oxford Languages reported that…
“Poem” came from the “Greek poēma, early variant of poiēma ‘fiction, poem’, from poiein ‘create’.” (“Everything comes from the Greek, #amirite – LOL!)
“Poetry” came from “medieval Latin poetria, from Latin poeta ‘poet’.”
Well, Google also included a list of “People also ask” questions, and the first one said, “Where did the word poetry come from?” – so I clicked on that:
So this bit of info stated that “poetry” also came from Greek, not Latin — but one side note: I found it a bit odd in that the definition focused on the aesthetic properties of speech sound in poetry and mentioned nothing at all about figurative language and other elements of poetry.
And then – are you ready for this???? — since I got conflicting info on “poetry” (stating that the word came from both Greek and Latin), I went back to “poem” to see if info related to its etymology would be just as confusing. I clicked on Google’s question, “What is the word poem derived from?” and I got this:
LOL — how did that slip in there?
Anyway, if any logophiles* have any additional info on the etymologies of “poem” and “poetry,” lemme know.
*LOL! When I typed in “logophiles,” autocorrect changed it to “loopholes” — so I might just start calling word lovers “loopholes.” 🤣
And did Dickinson ever use the words “poem” and/or “poetry” in any of her works?
I’ll have that answer tomorrow!
Its' All Greek To Me -- Part 2
Dickinson used the word “poem” in two different poems, “Her – ‘last poems’” and “To see the Summer sky.”
The word “poetry” appears in four poems: “Yesterday is history,” “To pile like Thunder to its close,” “There is no frigate like a book,” and “To see the Summer sky.”
Of course, of all of these first lines, the most famous is “There is no frigate like a book,” below on the left.
In the case of “To see the Summer sky,” this is the only poem where Dickinson used both the word “poetry” and “poem” in the same work. See below on the right.