Jupiter (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Jupiter (Iuppiter in Latin) held the same role as Zeus in the Greek pantheon. He was called Juppiter Optimus Maximus Soter (Jupiter Best, Greatest, Saviour) as the patron deity of the Roman state, in charge of laws and social order. He was the chief god of the Capitoline Triad, with Juno and Minerva.

Jupiter is a vocative compound derived from archaic Latin Iovis and pater (Latin for father), this was also used as the nominative case. Jove is an English formation based on Iov-, the stem of oblique cases of the Latin name. Its Vedic equivalent is Dyaus Pita.

The name of the god was also adopted as the name of the planet Jupiter, and was the original namesake of the weekday that would come to be known in English as Thursday (the etymological root can be seen in various Romance languages, including (accusative Iovem, genitive Iovis, dative Iovi and ablative Iove - an irregular declension). Linguistic studies identify his name as deriving from the Indo-European compound *dyēus- pəter- ("O Father God"), the Indo-European deity from whom also derive the Germanic *Tiwaz (after whom Tuesday was named), the Greek Zeus, and the French jeudi, Castilian jueves, Italian giovedì and Catalan dijous, all from Latin Iovis Dies, whereas English takes his Norse equivalent, Thor).