: a fragment (as of pottery) containing an inscription—usually used in plural
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the WebThe mention of her name is one of the few instances where a woman’s name appears on an ostracon. Megan Gannon, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Oct. 2020 The first ostracon was identified in 1853, and over the next century, only about 1,600 were counted from various deposits in Athens, including some from the Athenian Agora, or marketplace, which Sickinger has been studying. Megan Gannon, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Oct. 2020 That’s because for nearly 50 years archaeologists thought the back of the ostracon was blank, when really the ink was invisible. Nicholas St. Fleur, New York Times, 16 June 2017
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from Greek óstrakon "earthen pot, potsherd, hard shell of a mollusk or tortoise," of uncertain origin
Note: Greek óstrakon, as well as óstreion, óstreon "bivalve mollusk, oyster" (see oyster), have traditionally been taken as derivatives from Indo-European *h3esth1-r-, supposedly a heteroclitic stem with an -n- counterpart in Sanskrit ásthi, genitive asthnáḥ "bone," from a base *h3esth1- (or *h2osth1-), reflected more directly in Greek ostéon "bone" (see osteo-, osseous). The word óstrakon could be a derivative with a suffix *-n̥-k-, seen also without -r- in ostakón "lobster, crayfish" (see astaxanthin). These suppositions have been challenged by R. Beekes (Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2010), who rejects the existence of both the heteroclitic base and a supposed suffix *-n̥-k-, and takes the entire set of words as of substratal origin, with -ak- and -ei- (from *-ay-) as pre-Greek suffixes.