Ancient Greek

• (4th AD Koine) IPA^(key): /máɣos/

• (10th AD Byzantine) IPA^(key): /máɣos/

• (15th AD Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /máɣos/

Noun

Μάγος • ‎(Mágos) m ‎(genitive Μάγου); second declension

1. (common, nonspecific) magician, and derogatorily sorcerer, trickster, conjurer, charlatan
2. (common, specific) a Zoroastrian priest. Compare e.g. Herodotus Hist. 1.132f, Xenophon Cyropedia 8.3.11, Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 12, Heraclitus apud Clemens Protrepticus 12, etc.
3. (hapax) name of one of the tribes of the Medes. This usage is only attested once; Herodotus Histories 1.101.

Note 1: meanings #1 and #2 overlap in classical usage— both derive from the Greek (and generally Hellenistic) identification of "Zoroaster" as the "inventor" of astrology and magic. The first meaning ('magician') derives from the sense of "practitioner of the Zoroaster's craft", and the second meaning ('priest') from the sense of "practitioner of Zoroaster's religion".

Note 2: meanings #2 and #3 were frequently conflated as one in 18th/19th/early 20th-century usage, giving "name of a Median priestly tribe" or similar. This combined meaning is no longer used in current scholarship.

Inflection

Derived terms

• μάγος ‎(mágos)

References

• Μάγος in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Μάγος in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• «Μάγος» in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• Bauer, Walter et al. (2001) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Ancient Greek

• (4th AD Koine) IPA^(key): /máɣos/

• (10th AD Byzantine) IPA^(key): /máɣos/

• (15th AD Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /máɣos/

Adjective

μάγος • ‎(mágos) m, f ‎(neuter μάγον); second declension

1. magical

Inflection

Descendants

• Latin: magus

Noun

μάγος • ‎(mágos) m ‎(genitive μάγου); second declension

1. (common, nonspecific) magician, and derogatorily sorcerer, trickster, conjurer, charlatan
2. (common, specific) a Zoroastrian priest. Compare e.g. Herodotus Hist. 1.132f, Xenophon Cyropedia 8.3.11, Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 12, Heraclitus apud Clemens Protrepticus 12, etc.
3. (hapax) name of one of the tribes of the Medes. This usage is only attested once; Herodotus Histories 1.101.

Note 1: meanings #1 and #2 overlap in classical usage— both derive from the Greek (and generally Hellenistic) identification of "Zoroaster" as the "inventor" of astrology and magic. The first meaning ('magician') derives from the sense of "practitioner of the Zoroaster's craft", and the second meaning ('priest') from the sense of "practitioner of Zoroaster's religion".

Note 2: meanings #2 and #3 were frequently conflated as one in 18th/19th/early 20th-century usage, giving "name of a Median priestly tribe" or similar. This combined meaning is no longer used in current scholarship.

Inflection

Descendants

• Latin: magus

References

• LSJ
• Bauer lexicon
• Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont, Les Mages ****énises I, Paris, 1973.

• “G3097”, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979

Greek

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈma.ɣɔs/, [ˈmɐ.ɣo̞s̠]

Noun

μάγος • ‎(mágos) m ‎(plural μάγοι, feminine μάγισσα)

1. magician
2. wizard, sorcerer

Declension

Related terms

• μαγεία f ‎(mageía, “magic”)
• μαγεύω ‎(magévo, “cast a spell, bewitch”)
• μαγικά ‎(magiká, “magically”)
• μάγια f ‎(mágia, “ferment, yeast”)