# How do I say "The Book of Four Keys" in Ancient Greek?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 2, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323 "2011-10-02T03:09:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Stuart\_Sudekum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Stuart\_Sudekum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stuart_Sudekum)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323/1 "2011-10-02T03:09:05Z")

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I am trying to figure out how to say “The Book of Four Keys” in Ancient Greek. A friend told me that it was “Biblion Tetra Kleiss,” but to check with someone more knowledgeable.

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**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323/2 "2011-10-02T03:31:33Z")

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Wouldn’t you need the genitive plural of “four keys?”

I’d guess βίβλος τεσσάρων κλειδῶν (_biblos tessarôn kleidôn_), but I’m really posting just to subscribe to the thread.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323/3 "2011-10-02T07:33:03Z")

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You forgot the definite article ‘ho’ (I can’t spot omicron with a rough breathing in Charmap).

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**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323/4 "2011-10-02T09:48:08Z")

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> [@Quartz](#):
>
> You forgot the definite article ‘ho’ (I can’t spot omicron with a rough breathing in Charmap).

I was going to tell you to use a combining mark, but it seems that many fonts don’t support that for some reason.

ὁ is in there, but it’s pretty high up. It’s U+1F41, or &#[noparse]8001;[/noparse] in HTML. Under default settings, you can’t get it using the alt key, so I stick with the HTML entity.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [October 2, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-say-the-book-of-four-keys-in-ancient-greek/598323/5 "2011-10-02T12:55:06Z")

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Hmm… in what sense is the book ‘of four keys’? If it requires four keys to open, then that’s a property of the book and you might render it as

ὁ βίβλος τετράκλειδῶντος - ‘the 4 keyed book’.