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Carthage

ancient city of North Africa, from Phoenician quart khadash "new town." Related:Carthaginian.

Punic (adj.)

"pertaining to Carthage," 1530s, from Latin Punicus, earlier Poenicus "Carthaginian,"originally "Phoenician" (adj.), Carthage having been founded as a Phoenician colony, fromPoenus (n.), from Greek Phoinix "Phoenician" (see Phoenician). Carthaginians wereproverbial among the Romans as treacherous and perfidious. Punic Wars were three warsbetween the Romans and the Carthaginians fought 264-146 B.C.E. Related: Punical (early15c.).

Donatist (n.)

mid-15c., adherent of a Christian sect in 4c. North Africa, from Medieval Latin Donatista,from Donatus name of two of the principal men in it. The schism had more to do withepiscopal succession in Carthage than with doctrine. The name is literally "bestowed,given."

Phoenician (n.)

late 14c., from Middle French phenicien, from Latin Phoenice, from Greek Phoinike"Phoenicia" (including Carthage), perhaps literally "land of the purple" (i.e., source ofpurple dye, the earliest use of which was ascribed to the Phoenicians by the Greeks).Identical with phoenix (q.v.), but the relationship is obscure. In reference to a languagefrom 1836; as an adjective from c.1600.

symbol (n.)

early 15c., "creed, summary, religious belief," from Late Latin symbolum "creed, token,mark," from Greek symbolon "token, watchword" (applied c.250 by Cyprian of Carthageto the Apostles' Creed, on the notion of the "mark" that distinguishes Christians frompagans), literally "that which is thrown or cast together," from syn- "together" (see syn-)+ bole "a throwing, a casting, the stroke of a missile, bolt, beam," from bol-, nominativestem of ballein "to throw" (see ballistics). The sense evolution in Greek is from"throwing things together" to "contrasting" to "comparing" to "token used in comparisonsto determine if something is genuine." Hence, "outward sign" of something. The meaning

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"something which stands for something else" first recorded 1590 (in "Faerie Queene").

gorilla (n.)

1847, applied to the apes (Troglodytes gorills) by U.S. missionary Thomas Savage, fromGreek gorillai, plural of name given to wild, hairy people in a Greek translation ofCarthaginian navigator Hanno's account of his voyage along the N.W. coast of Africa,c.500 B.C.E. Allegedly an African word.

In its inmost recess was an island similar to that formerly described, whichcontained in like manner a lake with another island, inhabited by a rudedescription of people. The females were much more numerous than the males,and had rough skins: our interpreters called them Gorillae. We pursued butcould take none of the males; they all escaped to the top of precipices, whichthey mounted with ease, and threw down stones; we took three of the females,but they made such violent struggles, biting and tearing their captors, that wekilled them, and stripped off the skins, which we carried to Carthage: beingout of provisions we could go no further. [Hanno, "Periplus"]

Of persons perceived as being gorilla-like, from 1884.

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