Pantheon

How to spell pantheon

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce pantheon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pantheon mean?

1. nounThe complete set of a people's gods, or, by extension, a group of the most admired and important people in a particular field.

Pantheon in a sentence

• The lecture mapped the entire pantheon of ancient Egyptian gods.

• That recording earned her a place in the pantheon of jazz greats.

Where does pantheon come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek pantheion, which literally meant 'a temple of all the gods', formed from pan, meaning 'all', and theios, meaning 'of or belonging to the gods', itself built on theos, the ordinary Greek word for 'god'. The Romans adopted it as the Latin pantheon, the name of the great domed temple in Rome dedicated to all the deities, a building that still stands today. English took the word in during the 1300s, at first for that temple and the full body of a people's gods, and only later stretched it to mean a select group of the most celebrated people in a field. The same theos root surfaces in many familiar words, including 'theology', 'atheist', and 'monotheism', which is a useful reminder that the troublesome middle of the word is spelled 'the', not 'thee' or 'thi'. The 'pan' element is the same 'all' you meet in 'panorama' and 'pandemic', so picturing 'all the gods' helps fix the opening.

How the word is built

• pan- (all)
• the- (god, from Greek theos)
• -on (noun suffix)