Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word μάγος. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word μάγος, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say μάγος in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word μάγος you have here. The definition of the word μάγος will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofμάγος, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
(common, specific) a Zoroastrian priest. Compare e.g. Herodotus Hist. 1.132f, Xenophon Cyropedia 8.3.11, Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 12, Heraclitus apud Clemens Protrepticus 12, etc.
(hapax) name of one of the tribes of the Medes. This usage is only attested once; Herodotus Histories 1.101.
Usage notes
Meanings #1 and #2 overlap in classical usage— both derive from the Greek (and generally Hellenistic) identification of "Zoroaster" as the "inventor" of astrology and magic. The first meaning ('magician') derives from the sense of "practitioner of the Zoroaster's craft", and the second meaning ('priest') from the sense of "practitioner of Zoroaster's religion".
Meanings #2 and #3 were frequently conflated as one in 18th/19th/early 20th-century usage, giving "name of a Median priestly tribe" or similar. This combined meaning is no longer used in current scholarship.
^ Kent, Roland G. (1950) Old Persian: grammar, texts, lexicon, New Haven: American Oriental Society
^ Tolman, Herbert Cushing (1908) “magu”, in Ancient Persian lexicon and the texts of the Achaemenidan inscriptions transliterated and translated with special reference to their recent re-examination (Vanderbilt Oriental Series; 6), New York/Cincinnati/Chicago: American Book Company, pages 115-116