Meanings
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Thesaurus
Simplified etymology
Pope came through ecclesiastical Latin from ecclesiastical Greek papas, “bishop” or “patriarch,” a variant of Greek pappas, “father.” The underlying form belongs to a family of words based on early infant babbling sounds, also represented by papa.
Etymology
From Middle English pope, popa, from Old English pāpa, from Vulgar Latin papa (title for priests and bishops, esp. and by 8th c. only the bishop of Rome), from early Byzantine Greek παπᾶς (papâs, title for priests and bishops, especially by 3rd c. the bishop of Alexandria), from late Ancient Greek πάπας (pápas, title for priests and bishops, in the sense of spiritual father), from πάππας (páppas, “papa, daddy”).