{{Short description|Greek word for hate and hostility}} '''Echthroi''' (ἐχθροί) is a Greek plural meaning "the enemy" (literally "enemies"). The singular form of the word, '''echthros''' (ἐχθρός), is used in many versions and translations of the Bible for "enemy".
The words echthros and echthroi occur mainly in connection with biblical studies and in literary criticism of classical literature, specifically Greek tragedy. Aristotle and others classified people encountered by characters in tragedy into "philoi" (friends and loved ones), "echthroi" (enemies), and "medetoeroi" (neither enemy or friend), with the characters and their audience seeking a positive outcome for the first group and the downfall of the second.<ref name="classical">{{cite book | last = Lowe | first = N. J. |author2=S | title = The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 2000 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pzhS0wQNvNoC&q=Echthroi&pg=RA1-PA178 | isbn = 0-521-60445-1 | page = 178 }}</ref>
The term also appears in Canto XII of the little-known epic ''The Purple Island'' by seventeenth-century poet and rector Phineas Fletcher, apparently in the general meaning of enemies.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=KW44AAAAIAAJ&dq=Echthros&pg=PA322 The Poems of Phineas Fletcher]. Google Books. Retrieved 2008-03-01.</ref>
==See also== *''A Wind in the Door'' and ''A Swiftly Tilting Planet'', novels by Madeleine L'Engle featuring antagonists called Echthroi
==References== <references/>
Category:Greek words and phrases