Etymology

Hydaspes

H4Y4D2A1S1P3E1S1

Today it means: The river Jhelum, on the Indian subcontinent, especially as the location of a battle fought by Alexander the Great against King Porus in 326 BCE. Full definition →

Latin Hydaspēs ← Ancient Greek Ὑδάσπης ← Sanskrit वितस्ता
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Old Persian · derived from*Vidāspaʰ
  2. Sanskrit · derived fromवितस्ता
  3. Ancient Greek · derived fromὙδάσπης
  4. Latin · borrowed fromHydaspēs
  5. English todayHydaspes

Borrowed from Latin Hydaspēs, from Ancient Greek Ὑδάσπης (Hudáspēs), itself from Sanskrit वितस्ता (vitastā), also proposed to have been borrowed from Old Persian *Vidāspaʰ (literally “caring for horses”), from *vīd- (“to take care of”) + 𐎠𐎿𐎱 (a-s-p, “horse”) to explain the development -sp- instead of -st-, but this has no basis in any attested names for the river.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.