Messiahn.

Etymology: < post-classical Latin Messias (Vulgate) < Hellenistic Greek Μεσσίας < Aramaic mĕšīḥā < Hebrew māšīaḥ anointed (in the Septuagint rendered Χριστός Christ n. and int.) < māšaḥ to anoint. The α. forms are used in Old English in John 1:41 and 4:25 (the only passages in which the word is found in the Greek or Latin New Testament) and in scriptural commentaries. Messias was used by the translators of the Wycliffite Bible after the Vulgate, and by later translators from 1526 to 1611 directly after the Greek. The β. forms are < Middle French, French Messie (c1224 in Old French as Messies < post-classical Latin Messias (Vulgate), see above). These forms do not occur in any English translation of the Bible, though common in other literature down to the 15th cent. The form Messiah at γ. forms was introduced by the translators of the Geneva Bible of 1560, to give the traditional Messias a more Hebraic aspect in accordance with their policy of eliminating the Graecized forms of proper names from the Old Testament (though they retained them in the New Testament). In the King James Bible (1611) it was adopted in Daniel 9:25, 26, and although it occurs in no other passage of the King James version, it eventually became the only current form. The Revisers of 1880–4 substituted it for Messias in the two New Testament passages, but on the other hand removed it from its original place in Daniel 9, where they give ‘the anointed one’; most modern translations similarly have Messiah in both passages in John, but not in Daniel 9 (where wording varies greatly).