Πυθώ

Forms

Πῡθώ (Pūthṓ) f (genitive Πῡθοῦς); third declension^[1] Also Πυθών (Pūthṓn), gen. -ῶνος (Iliad 2.519), shaped after place names in -ών.^[2][3]

Etymology

It has no convincing etymology.^[2][3][4] Beekes labels it Pre-Greek.^[2] Wiktionary and Etymonline mention a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewb- (“deep, hollow, bottom”), as the home of monsters living in the depths.^[1][5] Dialect forms with t appear in inscriptions: Πύτιος (Pútios) in Crete and Pamphylia, and Πύτιον (Pútion), an Arcadian sanctuary.^[2]

Ancient writers usually derived it from πύθω (púthō, “to rot”), after the rotting of the serpent that Apollo killed there, as the Homeric Hymn to Apollo tells it.^[3][2][6] Sophocles instead linked it with πυνθάνομαι (punthánomai, “to learn by inquiry”), which Strabo already rejected because the υ of the name is long.^[3][2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for a town of Phocis, later called Delphi, “rocky” in the Iliad (9.405) and “holy” in the Odyssey (8.80).^[7][6] The Odyssey also has the form “to Pytho” with the suffix -δε.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The name covered the region in which Delphi lay and, from Pindar and Herodotus on, the city itself.^[6][4] Pleiades records it as a Greek name of the sanctuary from the 8th century BC to about AD 300, beside Δελφοί (Delphoí) from the 6th century BC.^[8]

From it come Πύθιος (Pū́thios), “Pythian, Delphian”, above all as an epithet of Apollo, and Πυθία (Pūthíā), the priestess who spoke his oracles.^[2][3] Latin borrowed the name and its derivatives, and English formed Pythian about 1600 and took Pythia, the priestess, from Greek in 1842.^[1][5] In Modern Greek it is a woman's name.^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey name Pytho as a town of Phocis.^[7][6]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony mentions it.^[6]
• 6th century BC – The Homeric Hymn to Apollo derives the name from the rotting of the serpent killed by Apollo.^[6][3][10]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for Delphi itself.^[6]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for Delphi, and Sophocles links it with πυνθάνομαι (punthánomai).^[6][3]
• 1st century BC to 1st century AD – Strabo rejects Sophocles' link because of the long vowel.^[3][4]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius glosses it as a city of Phocis.^[11]
• 10th century AD – The Suda describes it as the sanctuary of Apollo near Delphi, with the bronze tripod of the oracle.^[12]
• About 1600 – English has Pythian, “of Delphi or of Delphic Apollo”.^[5]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. Pytho, the region of Phocis in which Delphi lay; also Delphi itself.^[6][7][13]

Word family

• Πύθιος (Pū́thios)
• Πυθία (Pūthíā)

Related words

• Πύθων (Pū́thōn)
• Δελφοί (Delphoí)
• English Pythian
• English Pythia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
8. ^ Pleiades: a gazetteer of past places, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, https://pleiades.stoa.org
9. ^ Βικιλεξικό, the Greek Wiktionary, https://el.wiktionary.org
10. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
11. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
12. ^ Adler, Ada, ed. (1928–1938), Suidae Lexicon, 5 vols, Leipzig: Teubner
13. ^ Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press