I don’t remember the first time I heard the word “kudos,” but I distinctly remember thinking that it was 1970’s slang.

How wrong I was! I only found out last week that “kudos” goes all the way back to the days of Homer, meaning “magical glory” in ancient Greek.

So if someone says, “Kudos, you did a great job at the game,” the original meaning was more like, “Magical glory! You’ve been blessed by the gods. Great job.”

How cool is that?

At the moment, a fierce battle is raging among linguists regarding this word (a battle which, by the way, I would love to see in person).

Get all the details in episode 69 of the Vocabbett podcast! You can listen on your favorite podcast player, or hit play below!