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Byzantine, a Word for History Buffs
Today, the city that lies on the Bosporus Strait in Turkey is named Istanbul, but it was once known as Constantinople (a name given to it when it became the capital of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire), and in ancient times, it was called Byzantium. Its history is exotic—filled with mystics, wars, and political infighting—and over time the word Byzantine (from Late Latin Byzantinus, the name for a native of Byzantium) became synonymous with anything characteristic of the city or empire, from architecture to intrigue. The figurative sense referring to a devious manner of operation first appeared in the late 1930s. It was popularized by frequent use in reference to the Soviet Union, whose secrecy and despotism were equated by Westerners with what went on in the old Byzantine Empire.
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Examples of Byzantine in a Sentence
Irene Wright, Miami Herald, 1 Apr. 2024
At the Parthenon, a Byzantine tower and mosque from the Ottoman era were knocked down.
—Tony Perrottet, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Mar. 2024
But its notoriously Byzantine regulations and misleading guidance from some loan-servicing companies meant that few public servants managed to get debt relief.
—Aimee Picchi, CBS News, 21 Mar. 2024
Like, there’s Byzantine rules about all these things.
—Quartz Staff, Quartz, 19 Mar. 2024
The walls of the historical church feature intricate mosaics and the Pala d'Oro, a Byzantine altar is made from garnets, amethysts, sapphires, emeralds and hundreds of other precious gemstones.
—Gabriele Regalbuto, Fox News, 6 Mar. 2024
There was a time when there were no Byzantine ticket structures where some fares included seat selection, and others barred you from choosing your location on the plan in advance, or at least from doing so for free.
—Zach Wichter, USA TODAY, 14 Feb. 2024
There is one bougainvillea-shaded taverna, which shares the village square with a tiny Byzantine chapel, decorated with magnificent 14th-century frescoes.
—New York Times, 25 Jan. 2024
The coins dated back to the Greek and Byzantine period, nearly 2,000 years ago.
—Caitie Kelly Kin Woo Kate Guadagnino Nicole Demarco Megan O’Sullivan, New York Times, 25 Jan. 2024
Julia Daye, Miami Herald, 26 Mar. 2024
This remarkably romantic walled town is a stony museum of Byzantine, Ottoman, and Venetian history dating back to the 13th century.
—Rick Steves, Chicago Tribune, 30 Jan. 2024
In the east, the chart shows the remnants of the Crusader strongholds and the final throes of the Byzantine Empire.
—Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times, 25 Oct. 2023
The phantom time hypothesis goes something like this: The Holy Roman Emperor Otto III conspired with Pope Sylvester II (and quite possibly the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII as well) to doctor the dating system.
—Benjamin Plackett, Discover Magazine, 4 Oct. 2023
Feinstein often spent the autumn high holidays in the gold-domed, Byzantine Revival synagogue — one of the oldest in California and among the largest in the U.S. — usually sitting three rows back from the front, Singer said.
—Kevin Rector, Los Angeles Times, 1 Oct. 2023
The Eastern Empire, which was always stronger, continued as the Byzantine Empire, which broke up in the Middle Ages.
—Caitlin O'Kane, CBS News, 22 Sep. 2023
The Doge's Palace, in Piazza San Marco, is a building that was influenced by 500 years of architecture, from Byzantine to Eastern European and Asian to Roman Classical, and those ideas are layered over a lot of periods of construction.
—Emily Zemler, Condé Nast Traveler, 15 Sep. 2023
In the 1860s, Russian imperial thinkers began to promote the old sixteenth-century idea that Moscow was the successor of Rome and Constantinople as the center of world Christianity, the legitimate heir to the Byzantine Empire, and the last Christian kingdom, and thus bore a messianic destiny.
—Andrei Kolesnikov, Foreign Affairs, 22 Aug. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'Byzantine.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Byzantine.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Byzantine. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.
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Kids Definition
Byzantine
1 of 2 noun
bə-ˈzan-
Byzantine
2 of 2 adjective
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