phoenicia
/fəˈnɪʃɪə/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.25 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
The land of city states of the Phoenicians which around 1000 BC was situated on the coast of present day Syria and Lebanon, and included the cities of Tyre and Sidon.
name
The trading empire of the Phoenicians which spread across most of the eastern Mediterranean Sea as far west as Sicily.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin Phoenicia, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek Φοινίκη (Phoiníkē). The word is already found in the Mycenaean Greek ethnonym 𐀡𐀛𐀑𐀍 (po-ni-ki-jo). Ultimately from Egyptian fnḫw, f:n:x-w-V12:Z2 ‘Canaanites, Syrians’.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: Φοινίκη, fnḫw