Etymology of "Mentor"
American Heritage Dictionary:
The word mentor is an example of the way in
which the great works of literature live on without
our knowing it. The word has recently gained currency
in the professional world, where it is thought to be
a good idea to have a mentor, a wise and trusted counselor,
guiding one's career, preferably in the upper reaches
of the organization. We owe this word to the more heroic
age of Homer, in whose Odyssey Mentor is the
trusted friend of Odysseus left in charge of the household
during Odysseus's absence. More important for our usage
of the word mentor, Athena
disguised as Mentor guides Odysseus's son Telemachus
in his search for his father. Fénelon in his
romance Télémaque (1699) emphasized
Mentor as a character, and so it was that in French
(1749) and English (1750) mentor, going back
through Latin to a Greek name, became a common noun
meaning “ wise
counselor, ” first recorded in 1750. Mentor is
an appropriate name for such a person because it probably
meant “ adviser” in Greek and comes from
the Indo-European root men- , meaning “ to
think. ”
OED:
[< French mentor (1735 in sense 2 in a book title,
1749 in sense ‘guide, adviser’) < Mentor,
the name of a character in F. de S. de la Mothe-Fénelon's
Les Aventures de Télémaque (1699), after
ancient Greek , the name of a character in the Odyssey,
in whose likeness Athena appears to Telemachus and
acts as his guide and adviser. Cf. German Mentor (1725
in sense ‘court tutor, adviser’ in a book
title), Italian mentore (a1789), Spanish mentor (1785
in a book title).
N.E.D. (1906) notes that the emphasis Fénelon places on the role of
Mentor as a counsellor is key to the currency of this word in English and French.
Fénelon's work was one of the most popular political novels of its time,
and had been translated into English by 1699-1700, German by 1700, and Italian
by 1719: numerous English adaptations in prose, verse, and drama appeared in
the course of the 18th cent., including a translation by Smollett.
The ancient Greek name is recorded as a historical personal name in the 4th
cent. It may be cognate with MIND n.1] |