ichthys
/ˈɪkθəs/noun
ichthys is a noun meaning “A stylized representation of a fish, used as a Christian symbol” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-C-H-T-H-Y-S, and it appears about once in every 32 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of ichthys is ichthyses.
What does ichthys mean?
noun
- 1
A stylized representation of a fish, used as a Christian symbol.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce ichthys?
- /ˈɪkθəs/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sumxr-ichthys.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of ichthys
- ichthyses plural
- ichthus
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is ichthys?
Ichthys appears about once in every 32 million words in written English, the 171,907th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does ichthys come from?
From Ancient Greek ΙΧΘΥΣ (IKHTHUS, “fish”), which also served (repurposed) as an acronym (ΙΧΘΥΣ (IKHTHUS)) for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ (Iēsoûs Khristós, Theoû Huiós, Sōtḗr, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).