User:Sizzle Flambé/Hecat2

Name, etymology, spelling, and pronunciation
The most common, and most widely accepted, proposed etymology for the name Hecate derives it from the Greek Ἑκάτη [Hekátē], "the feminine equivalent of Hekatos, an obscure epithet of Apollo." This has been variously translated as "far shooting", "far darter" or "her that operates from afar". An alternative interpretation derives it (at least in the case of Hesiod's use) from the Greek word for will, which leads one researcher to identify "the name and function of Hecate as the one by whose will prayers are accomplished and fulfilled." This interpretation also appears in Liddell-Scott, A Greek English Lexicon, in the entry for Hecate, which is glossed as "lit. she who works her will".

In current standard English usage, Hecate (the Latin spelling) or Hekate (as transliterated from Greek) is most often pronounced, though sometimes.

Arthur Golding's 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses refers to "triple Hecat", and this spelling without the final E later appears in plays of the Elizabethan-Jacobean period. Noah Webster in 1866 particularly credits the influence of Shakespeare for the then-predominant pronunciation of "Hecate" without the final E. Some neopagan worshippers of the goddess pronounce the name as, , or , the last sometimes spelled Hekat.