antenna [M17th] On old Mediterranean sailing ships certain types of triangular sail, now called lateen sails, were supported by long yards or poles at an angle of 45 degrees to the mast, which reminded the ancients of an insect’s antennae. The Latin word antenna was an alteration of antemna ‘sailyard’, and was used by writers to translate the Greek keraioi ‘horns of insects’. When Marconi and others developed radio in the 1890s the word was quickly taken up, along with aerial (see air), to refer to a rod or wire by which signals were received.