Britain (place name)

The terms Briton and British, similarly derived, refer to some or all of its inhabitants and, to varying extents, those of the smaller islands in the vicinity.

[1][2] The earliest written reference to the British Isles derives from the works of the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia; later Greek writers such as Diodorus of Sicily and Strabo who quote Pytheas' use of variants such as Πρεττανική (Prettanikē), "The Britannic [land, island]", and nēsoi brettaniai, "Britannic islands", with *Pretani being a Celtic word that might mean "the painted ones" or "the tattooed folk", referring to body decoration (see below).

This may demonstrate that the original Common Brittonic form had initial P- not B- (which would give **Brydain) and -t- not -tt- (else **Prythain).

This may be explained as containing a stem *prit- (Welsh pryd, Old Irish cruith; < Proto-Celtic *kwrit-), meaning "shape, form", combined with an adjectival suffix.

It is believed to have appeared within a periplus (coastal map) written in about 325 BC by the geographer and explorer Pytheas of Massalia, but no copies of this work survive.

[11][12][13][14] Although technically an adjective (the Britannic or British) it may have been a case of noun ellipsis, a common mechanism in ancient Greek.

[31] For example, linguist Karl Schmidt states that the "name of the island was originally transmitted as Πρεττανία (with Π instead of Β) ... as is confirmed by its etymology".

[38] In Old English or Anglo-Saxon, the Graeco-Latin term referring to Britain entered in the form of Bryttania, as attested by Alfred the Great's translation of Orosius' Seven Books of History Against the Pagans.

The term Britain is widely used as a common name for the sovereign state of the United Kingdom, or UK for short.