The Rather Colorful Origin of the Word Gymnasium

Especially in the US but also in other countries, a lot of people go to the gym to work out. ‘Gym’ is short for gymnasium and it is normally thought of as a building or structure that contains exercise or sporting equipment. A little more about this before we look at the rather colorful, surprising, and offbeat origin of the word.

Most schools in the US also have a gym. That is often with the sport-related connotation. Such things as basketball, wrestling, and gymnastics in school are done in the gym. Assemblies and physical education also usually occur there. As an interesting side note, gymnastics has the same origin as gymnasium, which could raise some eyebrows as I explain that origin.

As a person might imagine, just based on the word “gymnasium”, the origin of the word is old Greek. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the fact that the Greeks prided themselves as being quite physically fit. That was a trait that was widely admired by the people in that culture. People today have similar feelings about men and women who are obviously physically fit, though not to the same degree.

The Greeks actively promoted competitions between physically fit individuals and called the competitions the “Olympics”, a name which itself is based on Greek mythology. Today, we have many different sports and competitions that are aimed at showing physical fitness and prowess; football, soccer, cricket, track and field, baseball, tennis, basketball, mixed martial arts, gymnastics, swimming, and the list goes on and on. People who compete in these sports must be physically fit or they won’t last long. Even Sumo wrestlers must be physically fit, though also undeniably fat.

All of this said, “gymnasium” comes from the Greek root word, “gymnos”. Gymnos means “naked”. This wasn’t a mistake. You see, the ancient Greeks would work out and compete in the nude. To them, covering the human form during either exercising or competing was a slap in the face to the athletes and the people watching them. If a person was flabby and not fit, they would cover it with clothing. Someone who was fit had no need to do so.

At the time, there wasn’t a moral issue with this because the Greeks didn’t equate nudity with sex, as is common today. Their thought was that we were created and came into the world with the best clothing possible; our skin. Covering it degraded the human body.

Although they had an excellent point, and it is hard to argue with the logic, I somehow don’t see mankind returning to working and out and competing as the Greeks did. At least, I don’t see that happening anytime soon, except in the uncommon ‘clothing-optional’ establishments. 

Fess up; did you know that gymnasiums were named after the Greek propensity to work out in the nude?