Word of the Day

: April 3, 2008

omphalos

noun AHM-fuh-lahss

What It Means

: a central point : hub, focal point

omphalos in Context

"New Yorkers tend to see their city as the world's omphalos." (Alexandra Simou, The New York Sun, February 23, 2005)

Did You Know?

"Omphalos" originated as an ancient Greek word meaning "navel" and is distantly related to two other words of the same meaning, Latin "umbilicus" and Old English "nafela." (The latter of these is the source of our word "navel.") The ancient Greeks also used "omphalos" to refer to a sacred, rounded stone in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi that was supposed to mark the center of the earth. In the 19th century, English speakers borrowed "omphalos" for this sense and its more general "center of activity" sense, as well as to refer to raised ornamentation on a shield or in the base of a cup or dish. In the 1920s, "omphalos" made another contribution to English via the word "omphaloskepsis," which means "contemplation of one's navel."