Meanwhile, the term for ‘end’ in Greek is ‘telos,’ and not ‘omega,’ Anastasia Giannakidou, director at the Center for Hellenic Studies at the University of Chicago, told Reuters ( here).

‘Omicron’ and ‘Omega’ are “distinct letters and omicron is composed of the words o- and ‘micron’, not ‘chronos’ (time),” Paris Papamichos Chronakis, lecturer in Modern Greek History at Royal Holloway, University of London, said.

Omega (NOT omikron) does therefore have historical connotations of the end of all things, end of time, etc. “The misunderstanding arises because omega (NOT omikron) is the last letter in the alphabet, and ever since early Christianity omega has been coupled with the first letter (alpha), so that the symbols, and the words, together - alpha and omega - come to stand for the beginning and end of time. In Greek today they are pronounced the same, but in the ancient language there was a difference between them, probably like that between the sound in the English words ‘hot’ and ’no’,” Roderick Beaton, Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language and Literature at King’s College London, said. “The Greek alphabet has two letters corresponding to our letter ‘o’: omikron (also spelt omicron in English) whose name means ‘little o’ and omega, whose name means ‘big o’. Andrews told Reuters.Īll letters in the Greek alphabet can be viewed ( here). The suggestion that omicron means ‘end of time’ is false and based on misreading omicron as an abridged compound where om stands for omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) and kron for chronos (the Greek for time),” Olaf Almqvist, Lecturer in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St. “Omicron is the Greek for ‘little o’ (o mikron) as opposed to omega meaning ‘great/big o’. The term ‘Omicron’ does not translate to ‘end time’ in ancient or modern Greek, experts told Reuters.

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