419: apology Jan 31, 2015

For anyone familiar with Plato or Augustine (who studied Plato's work in great detail), will have come across the term 'apology' in the sense of an argument or piece of rhetoric, which can be somewhat confusing when we think of the way 'apology' is used now. In the early 15th century Middle English, the word meant, 'defense, justification'. This is from ultimately the Greek, 'apologia' which is 'a speech in defense'. The roots of the word are 'apo-' which means 'from, off' and 'logos' which means 'speech'. The modern, not defensive sense is relatively recent.