athame

English

An athame

Etymology

From French arthame in a 1929 passage from É.-J. Grillot de Givry (see 1931 citation below), apparently from Medieval Latin artavus (“quill-sharpening knife”). Artavus was also mistranslated into artauo in an Italian manuscript. The arthame was conflated with the cortel nero ("black knife") by Grillot de Givry, and that conflation was passed on to Gerald Gardner (the creator of Wicca).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈθeɪmeɪ/, /əˈθɑːmeɪ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɑˈθɑ.meɪ/, /əˈθɑ.meɪ/, /ˈæ.θəˌmeɪ/

Noun

athame (plural athames)

1. A ceremonial pointed knife or dagger, used especially in Wicca and other neopagan traditions and typically having a black handle with magical symbols on it. [from 20th c.]
   • 1931, Émile-Jules Grillot de Givry, chapter 7, in JC Locke, transl., Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy:

     She is moving with a regal gait, grasping the arthame, or magic knife.

   • 1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 60:

     Agia was quicker, making a cut at my neck with an athame before his weapon was free of the scabbard.

   • 1999, James R. Lewis, Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions, page 22:

     The athame is a black-handled ritual knife—one of the most common distinguishing marks of the Neopagan Witch.

Alternative forms

• athamé

Translations

ritual dagger

• French: athamé (fr)
• Latin: artavus m
• Spanish: átame m, daga (es) f

Anagrams

• Tehama, hamate