Whence the name Polymetis?

Almost everybody who encounters the name of my house — and (1985..2006) my company — asks what it means and where it comes from; so it seems a good idea to explain it here.

The name Polymetis is derived from classical Greek; definitions are from Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (OUP 1905)

πολυ- (poly-) means, as most people know, many.

μητις (metis, where the e is long, Greek letter η eta) is a noun meaning

  1. counsel, wisdom, skill, cunning, craft
  2. a plan, enterprise

Hence πολυμητις (polymetis), which is an adjective, means (as the Lexicon has it) of many counsels or expedients, ever-ready. This word

  1. was used (in Greek) repeatedy to describe the hero Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey with the meaning resourceful;
  2. was used (in English) in the title of a work published in 1747 by Joseph Spence entitled Polymetis: Or, An Enquiry Concerning the Agreement Between the Works of the Roman Poets, And the Remains of the Antient Artists. Being an Attempt to Illustrate them Mutually from One Another.In ten books.

Polymetis Thoughtware Limited

This was what I named my company when I set it up in 1985 for my continued UK career as an information technology consultant. Thoughtware meant what it says: thoughts are my wares or I think for a living. I worked as an IT consultant from then until 2004 though the time when I was busy each year dropped off very sharply after September 2001 (on the 12th, in fact, and for the reason that date evokes). the kind of IT work that I did is always of the kind that needs a lot of both knowledge and careful thought. A web search of the word using AltaVista came up with 42 references; several are companies in the USA with names that include the word, so clearly nobody has any legal claim to a monopoly of it. However, as far as we know, Polymetis Thoughtware Limited used the word first. I dissolved the company in December 2006 and it disappeared in due course (February 2007).