Etymology

Necronomicon

N1E1C3R1O1N1O1M3I1C3O1N1

Today it means: A fictional grimoire of arcane and forbidden knowledge whose contents can drive a person mad. Full definition →

Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

Pseudo-loan from Ancient Greek, derived from νεκρός (nekrós, “dead”) + νόμος (nómos, “law”) + εἰκών (eikṓn, “image”), literally “an image of the law of the dead”. Coined by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. By surface analysis, necro- + -nomicon.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.