Despite their similarities, the adjective “gnomic” comes from a different root than the noun for a fairy-tale creature. “Gnome,” the word for a dwarfish being in many classic stories, comes from the Greek “genomos,” meaning “Earth dweller.” Paracelsus, a 16th-century alchemist, wrote about an elemental Earth being he called “gnomi,” and this term eventually turned into “gnome.” The adjective “gnomic” comes from the Greek root “gnōmē,” meaning “the mind” or “intelligence.” Gnomic phrases are short, instructive phrases that are easily recognized and remembered: “knowledge is power,” and “you reap what you sow,” for example.