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Origin and history of vates

vates(n.)

1620s, "poet or bard," specifically "Celtic divinely inspired poet" (1728), from Latin vates "sooth-sayer, prophet, seer," from a Celtic source akin to Old Irish faith "poet," Welsh gwawd "poem," from PIE root *wet- (1) "to blow; inspire, spiritually arouse" (source also of Old English wod "mad, frenzied," god-name Woden; see wood (adj.)). Hence vaticination "oracular prediction" (c. 1600).

also from 1620s

Entries linking to vates

wood(adj.)

"violently insane, mad, frantic" (senses now obsolete), Middle English wode, from Old English wod "mad, frenzied," from Proto-Germanic *woda-, reconstructed in Watkins to be from PIE *wet- (1) "to blow; inspire, spiritually arouse," source of Latin vates "seer, poet," Old Irish faith "poet;" "with a common element of mental excitement" [Buck].

Germanic cognates include Gothic woþs "possessed, mad," Old High German wuot "mad, madness," German wut "rage, fury." Also compare Old English woþ "sound, melody, song," Old Norse oðr "poetry," and the god-name Odin.

To do something "like mad" in Middle English might be to do it woodiwise (c. 1300) or for wood (late 14c.). Brain-wood was "mindless, out of control;" word-wood "unrestrained in speech."

Potential confusions with wood (n.) might have discouraged its use. The same verb, wõden, in 15c. could mean "take to the woods" (from hunting) or "be or go mad, rave, rage."

Related: Woodship "state of madness, frenzy, rage;" woodness, woodhede "unsoundness of mind, mental disorder."

prophet(n.)

late 12c., "person who speaks for God; one who foretells, inspired preacher," from Old French prophete, profete "prophet, soothsayer" (11c., Modern French prophète) and directly from Latin propheta, from Greek prophētēs (Doric prophatēs) "an interpreter, spokesman, proclaimer; a harbinger" (as cicadas of summer), but especially "one who speaks for a god, inspired preacher or teacher," from pro "before" (from PIE root *per- (1) "forward," hence "in front of, before") + root of phanai "to speak" (from PIE root *bha- (2) "to speak, tell, say").

The Greek word was used in Septuagint for Hebrew nabj "soothsayer, inspired prophet." Early Latin writers translated Greek prophetes with Latin vates, but the Latinized form propheta predominated in post-Classical times, chiefly due to Christian writers, probably because of pagan associations of vates. In English, meaning "prophetic writer of the Old Testament" is from late 14c. Non-religious sense is from 1848; used of Muhammad by 1610s (translating Arabic al-nabiy, and sometimes also al-rasul, properly "the messenger"). The Latin word is glossed in Old English by witga. The Prophets for "the prophetic books of the Old Testament" is by late 14c.