ostracon

noun

os·​tra·​con ˈä-strə-ˌkän 

plural ostraca ˈä-strə-kə 

: a fragment (as of pottery) containing an inscription

—usually used in plural

Examples of ostracon in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The 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.

First Known Use

1883, in the meaning defined above