Etymology

pleroma

ple·ro·ma
P3L1E1R1O1M3A1

Today it means: A plant of the genus Pleroma. Full definition →

Late Latin pleroma ← Koine Greek πλήρωμᾰ ← Ancient Greek πλήρωμᾰ
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The story

  1. Ancient Greek · derived fromπλήρωμᾰ
  2. New Latin · borrowed fromPleroma
  3. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*pleh₁-“to fill”
  4. Ancient Greek · derived fromπλήρωμᾰ“that which fills, a complement; a filling up, a completing”
  5. Koine Greek · derived fromπλήρωμᾰ“(biblical) perfect fullness”
  6. Late Latin · learned borrowing frompleroma“(Gnosticism) spiritual universe seen as the totality of the essence and powers of God”
  7. English todaypleroma

Learned borrowing from Late Latin pleroma (“(Gnosticism) spiritual universe seen as the totality of the essence and powers of God”), from Koine Greek πλήρωμᾰ (plḗrōmă, “(biblical) perfect fullness”), Ancient Greek πλήρωμᾰ (plḗrōmă, “that which fills, a complement; a filling up, a completing”), from πληρόω (plēróō, “to make full, fill; to complete, finish”) (from πλήρης (plḗrēs, “complete, full”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁- (“to fill”)) + -όω (-óō, suffix forming verbs with the sense of making someone be or do something)) + -μᾰ (-mă, suffix forming nouns denoting the result or effect of an action). Noun sense 1.1 (“plant”) is borrowed from New Latin Pleroma, a genus name coined by the Scottish botanist David Don (1799–1841) in 1822, from Ancient Greek πλήρωμᾰ (plḗrōmă) (see above) to describe the way the seeds of the plant filled the capsule. Noun sense 2 (“state of perfect fullness”) is chiefly used in reference to Colossians 2:9 of the Bible: “Ὅτι ἐν αὐτῶῳ κατοικεῖ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος σωματικῶς [For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form]”.

Words from the same roots

Ancient Greekπλήρωμᾰ all →

Proto-Indo-European*pleh₁- all →

publiccompletecomplypolyglotnonplussedmaniplenonplusplebiscitumplethoricallypluri-unfull

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.