In reading the local newspaper, I found the word "mati." Now, the author defined it as "evil eye," but I wanted to find out more about it. Is it a foreign word? I couldn't find it in Onelook or on Google (except for those people named "Mati").
Looked around online, and mati seems to be the modern Greek term for 'evil eye'.
To mati means 'eye' in Modern Greek. To kako mati 'evil eye', but I guess the mati by itself has come to mean evil eye. Latin invidia 'envy' is based on this idea of evil eye in- intensive prefix + video 'to see'. Seeing is dangerous.
[This message was edited by jheem on Thu Feb 19th, 2004 at 20:26.]
The 'kako mati' or evil eye is alive and well here in Greece. The other day I suddenly got a headache and was yawning unjustifiably and I was told that someone had put the evil eye on me, ie that I was 'matiasmeni'. Supposedly someone puts the evil eye on you (usually someone with blue or green eyes) that envies you for some reason. The remedy for this is to find someone (usually an old aunt or grannie) who knows how to perform the 'xematiasma' where she mutters some indiscernible incantation and sprinkles you with water or spits on you! Hence the expression, 'Ftou, min se matiaso' which means 'I spit on you so that I don't put the evil eye on you' (because you look so nice or healthy).
Supposedly someone puts the evil eye on you (usually someone with blue or green eyes) that envies you for some reason. ---------------------------------------- So, this is the source for Shakespeare's calling jealousy, "the green-eyed monster" in Othello?
In Italy, the person curing / combatting the evil eye is supposed to spit three times, rapidly in succession. Professor Alan Dundes wrote an interesting monograph called: "Evil Eye: Wet or Dry."
