Eureka

The word comes from ancient Greek "I have found it", which is the 1st person singular perfect indicative active of the verb heuriskō "I find". The reconstructed Ancient Greek pronunciation is [hěu̯rɛːka], while the Modern Greek pronunciation is [ˈevrika].The accent of the English word is on the second syllable, following Latin accent rules, which require that a penult (next-to-last syllable) must be accented if it has a long vowel. In the Greek pronunciation, the first syllable has a high pitch accent, because the Ancient Greek rules of accent do not force accent to the penult unless the ultima (last syllable) has a long vowel. The long vowels in the first two syllables would sound like a double stress to English ears (as in the phrase Maltese cat).The initial /h/ is dropped in some European languages, including English, but preserved in others, such as Finnish and German: Heureka