Etymology

katharevousa

Ka·tha·re·vou·sa
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Today it means: A learned, archaising form of Modern Greek, based on Classical Greek and used for formal and official purposes; it was legally displaced as the official language of Greece in 1976 by Demotic Greek. Full definition →

Greek καθαρεύουσα ← Ancient Greek καθαρεύω
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The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromκαθαρεύω“to be clean, pure”
  2. Greek · borrowed fromκαθαρεύουσα
  3. English todayKatharevousa

From Greek καθαρεύουσα (katharévousa), feminine of καθαρεύων (katharévon), present participle of Ancient Greek καθαρεύω (kathareúō, “to be clean, pure”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.