🔼The name Drusilla: Summary
- Meaning
- Dew, Tender, Fresh, Newborn
- Etymology
- From the noun δροσος (drosos), freshness, youngness.
🔼The name Drusilla in the Bible
Drusilla makes only a brief appearance in the Bible. She's mentioned as the wife of Felix who sends for Paul to hear about Jesus (Acts 24:24).
Drusilla was the astonishingly beautiful daughter of Herod Agrippa and sister of Bernice. When Felix caught her in the cross-hairs she was married to a man named Gaius Julius Azizus, who had had himself circumcised in order to be allowed to marry the Jewish princess (Josephus, Ant XX.7.1). Undeterred, Felix enlisted the aid of a self-proclaimed magician named Simon, who talked her into leaving her husband and joining Felix.
When Drusilla met Paul, she was about twenty-two years old. Her life ended under the ashes of Mount Vesuvius, as did that of her son Marcus Antonius Agrippa (and Pliny the Elder).
🔼Etymology of the name Drusilla
The delightful name Drusilla is probably related to the masculine name Drusus, and both are related to the Latin word ros and the Greek word δροσος (drosos), which has to do with newness and tenderness. It commonly means dew, but is also used for other liquids; pure water or even blood. But, according to Liddell and Scott — An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, it also denotes "anything tender, like the young of animals".
🔼Drusilla meaning
Thus it becomes difficult to render the name Drusilla one single translation. The word Dew (with which this name is usually translated) wasn't called dew by the Greeks but "that delicate stuff that just showed up". Likewise, young of animals were called "those delicate things that just arrived".
The name Drusilla means Tender, Fresh and Newborn.