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This is crazy. As I was trawling online etymology forums, I came across the peculiar history of Lucifer. In the beginning, there was nothing (haha), until the Romans went along and invented the word lux, meaning "light", with a conjugated form luc. The Romans built upon that word by tacking on the suffix -fer, meaning "bringing". So lucifer originally referred to "light-bringing", or as it came to be used, "morning star" or "light on the horizon". This Satanic word originally meant something good, completely opposite from its current definition. However, when people decided to make the Bible, the Lord says in Isaiah 14:12 "How you have fallen from heaven, lucifer, son of the dawn!" Thus, Lucifer became sort of a proper noun and came to refer to fallen angels. At that point, it was only a skip, a hop, and a jump until the ultimate transition was made from "corrupt angel" to "the ultimate opposing force against God", with Lucifer's present-day synonyms including very nasty words like "the Devil", "Satan", and "Beelzebub", which shouldn't be associated with "light-bringer", but sadly they are.
13 Comments
Shanti
6/29/2018 09:33:37 am
I don't know Hebrew, but I've read that the original, "helel ben shahar", roughly "The shining one, son of the dawn", referred to a Babylonian king's name and presumably his father's name, not even to an angel. Then, of course, helel was translated from Hebrew to Latin as Lucifer, because the morning star (now known to be Venus) would logically be the sun of dawn.
Naati
4/10/2019 12:09:52 am
You sir are 100% correct
Nick
6/20/2020 11:04:13 pm
An interesting note following a comment you made in the post about it being a positive meaning. Jesus is called the morning star by Peter in 2 Peter 1:16-21.
Chris
11/9/2020 03:46:14 pm
When was the proper noun (name) "Lucifer" first used?
ESTHER
12/18/2021 05:45:34 pm
Lucifer means light bringer and satan has never brought light to anyone, the word lucifer in Isaiah 14:12 was wrongly translated.
Christine
2/16/2021 10:48:15 am
Wish more people had the common sense to look up the etymologies of words. We might have a lot less "noise" in the world and maybe even a bunch more peace. Definitely less bull$#!t... may even do away with some "sheep". Thinking about working on a project that does this very thing.... Keep doing what you're doing.
Kyle
3/22/2021 06:11:06 am
Hey Christine we should collaborate ..thinking about soon doing the same sort of project!! HMU @ kyledw9@gmail.com 4/14/2022 12:27:18 pm
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AUTHOR
Hello! I'm Adam Aleksic, a senior studying government and linguistics at Harvard University, where I co-founded the Harvard Undergraduate Linguistics Society. In addition to etymology, I also really enjoy trivia, politics, vexillology, geography, board games, conlanging, art history, and law.
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