Etymology of terms.

So one thing that interests me is looking up the proper meaning of words that don't seem to make much sense at first. Whether it's something archaic, part of an enemy name that's usually ignored, or something that has a more specific meaning than what is generally assumed, I like that this game generally has meaning behind such words.

For starters as I haven't done much specific research yet here are some that I've noticed in normal play.


The word Chiurgeon is used a number of times in cutscenes, it took me a while to notice that it's a variant on surgeon, but instead of cutting into people, they manipulate the person's aether (or chi) to bring about healing instead. (especially relevant as in FFXIV, there seems to be little difference between organic matter and aether)

One of the bosses in Hauke Manor is the Manor Claviger. Looking up the term it appears to be an old term for a doorman, meaning "keeper of the keys" or something to that effect. In time it came to also refer to the warden of a jail. Fitting as not only would he have keys to the rooms in the manor, but has the key leading to the dungeon.

The area where you fight Ozma in the lost city of Mhach is referred to as the gloriole. Looking it up gives the definition of the radiant light surrounding the head of a saint in religious iconography. Basically a halo, though it's usage seems to prefer a kind of glow instead of the solid ring usually associated with a halo, it also seems to have a more specific religious context as it literally translates to "A small glory"

Keeping in mind the meanings of historical significance of certain words can also serve as a quick clue to the job that an enemy has. A quick example would be recognizing that garlean units that end in sagitarrus are archers due to the constellation associating. One a bit more obscure is the barbers in Pharos Sirius. The seafaring nature of the enemies brings to mind the age of piracy. In those times barbers doubled as surgeons, making them the medic class among the enemies.

For future replies or topics I think I'll try delving more deeply into specific matters, specifically dungeons and the place, enemy, and ability names.

The word is chirurgeon, not chiurgeon, and is an actual word. It's an old-timey word for a surgeon basically.

In Thousand Maws of Toto-rak the place where you fight the final boss is called the Abacination Chamber.

Abacination is a medieval form of torture used to punish heretics. They would heat up a metal plate to red hot then hold it in front of the heretic's face. The heat radiation would cause the heretic's eyes to boil and burst.

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Originally Posted by Shadotterdan

The word Chiurgeon is used a number of times in cutscenes, it took me a while to notice that it's a variant on surgeon

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Chirurgeon is the real-world archaic English term for a surgeon.

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Originally Posted by Shadotterdan

garlean units that end in sagitarrus are archers due to the constellation associating.

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There is an association, but they're not named after the constellation; the constellation is so named because it's an archer on horseback. The Garlean soldiers are named for Roman gladiatorial styles and army terms.

Eques (pl. equites): cavalryman with a sword or spear
Hoplomachus: sword and round shield
Laquearius: lasso and dagger, variant of the retiarius (net and trident)
Sagittarius: cavalry archer
Secutor: sword and tall shield, anti-retiarius
(more about gladiatorial styles)

Centurion: army officer
Decurion: cavalry officer
Evocatus: retired soldier who has been voluntarily reactivated
Signifer (pl. signiferi): standard-bearer (carries the banner that identifies who your army is fighting for, so people can decide whether or not to shoot at you)

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Originally Posted by Shadotterdan

One a bit more obscure is the barbers in Pharos Sirius. The seafaring nature of the enemies brings to mind the age of piracy. In those times barbers doubled as surgeons, making them the medic class among the enemies.

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See From Haircuts to Hangnails -- The Barber-Surgeon for more information about the role of barbers during the middle ages. Some of these responsibilities persisted in America as late as frontier times, when the nearest doctor might have been a week's stage coach ride away.

Cool idea, very nice seeing someone looking into this and sharing it with us.

As a Blm, I'd be interested in the meaning of Apocatastasis and Enochian ;)

Apocatastasis is a doozy. Initially meaning the return to a primordial form, essentially if a hypothetical catastrophe were to occur and return the earth or universe to a much earlier state.

It also has been used in many religious contexts to convey a similar notion in a more personal scale regarding individual spirituality or faith.

The biblical flood could be considered an apocatastasis for civilization where it was reverted to an earlier time and had to rebuild from there.

Enochian was supposedly the language of Angels as purported by a 16th century medium who claimed that the language was what Adam spoke in the Garden of Eden and the language in which he named all of the animals.

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Originally Posted by Ferth

Enochian was supposedly the language of Angels as purported by a 16th century medium who claimed that the language was what Adam spoke in the Garden of Eden and the language in which he named all of the animals.

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To build on that, "Enochian" comes from the name "Enoch", the great-grandfather of the Biblical Noah. Enoch is pronounced ee-naak or ee-nock, and the BLM ability is pronounced ee-naak-kian or ee-noc-kian. Just a friendly PSA, as I've noticed a lot of people reading it as eno-chain instead. :p

There is such a thing as Enochian magic in real life. As Ferth explained, it's supposed to allow the occult practitioner to invoke and command spirits.

Here are my contributions to the arcane terms used in FFXIV:

(1) Noumenon is an actual concept that featured heavily in the epistemological philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

The German thinker was a giant of his time, and among his greatest contributions were his musings on the nature of knowledge. Basically, he's one of the strongest proponents of the "two worlds" of things, phenomenon and noumenon. Phenomenon describe things as we perceive them to be, while noumenon are the true nature of the things we perceive.

In Kant's view, phenomenon are the "wrappers" around the black box that is the "thing-in-itself". As human beings, limited by our physical senses, we will never be able to perceive the "thing-in-itself". What we know about the objects around us are limited to what we can perceive them to be.

(2) This view is, interestingly, an echo of the ancient Greek concept of Mimesis (MAI-mee-sis). Mimesis derives from the Greek word for imitation, and Plato used the concept to criticise poetry as an imitation of reality, twice-removed from the truth of what things really are.

Plato argued that an idea exists in its truest form as something in the mind of God. Take the divine idea of a chair. A carpenter is inspired by this divine idea to create the object that we know as the chair. An artist comes along and is so impressed by the chair that he makes a perfect painting of the chair. But, despite the painting's perfection, it remains no more than an imitation of an imitation of the true idea of a chair as it exists in God's mind.

The point that Plato was trying to make is that artists have a duty to be as good as they can be, because while they help to spread knowledge through their creations, they are already two steps removed from the "truth", and can risk further distorting knowledge if they aren't as accurate as possible in their depiction of an idea.

Being a summoner main, it shouldn't be surprising that I'm intrigued by the choice of "Mimesis" as the name of the i270 summoner relic. It references, I think, the idea of egi being "imitations" of the real thing, the primals, who are in turn imitations of beings that once existed in Hydaelyn's history. :)

The word miasma (summoner skill) means "bad air" generally thought to cause disease when direct contact didn't account for the spread of sickness.... what's funny is when people use bio, bio2, miasma, miasma 2 as shorthand when needing a break in a party (#1, #2, cigarette, weed respectively)

Firstly, I think this an excellent thread. :)

Secondly, two names that are important aspects of FFXIV's story, Ascian and Eikon, are actually Greek words.

'Ascian' loosely means 'shadowless', they were supposedly a race of people who were believed to exist in Africa, which Eorzea is very loosely based on, and being in the Tropics, they would literally 'cast no shadow' when the sun is directly overhead (which near the equator happens twice a year), with the word entering English-language popular culture with Gene Wolfe's famous science fantasy novel series The Book of the New Sun (where the Ascians were actually humans of a far future Earth). In regards to the FFXIV version, the name had more importance in the original version of FFXIV where the few Ascians that actually were seen on screen (the now decanonized elezen Ascian Travenchet and a nameless wraith like 'bestial' Ascian seen in Thanalan) indeed did not cast shadows (in fact, Michael Christopher Koji-Fox even played into this by telling players to "find more Ascians in 1.0 by looking for people who didn't have shadows!" ;)).

Naturally though, this idea seems have been quietly dropped as the Ascians in ARR seem to cast shadows, so their name no longer really rings true, sadly (another reference to them not having shadows is their leitmotif composed by Nobuo Uematsu is literally called Without Shadow. ;))

As for Eikon, which here in FFXIV is the Garlean word for Primal, in the real world 'eikon' is actually the Greek word from which the English word 'icon' is derived, and means 'image' (the true meaning for 'icon' is an image of a religious figure or deity.) Which makes sense given that Primals are 'false gods' created from a strong will or idea, an image given flesh so to speak.

Paladin - origins from Mount Palatin in Rome and the housing of the roman emperor. Paladin were the royal guard of the palace on Mount Palatin and also the personal guard of the roman emperor.