Πύθων

Forms

Πῡ́θων (Pū́thōn) m (genitive Πῡ́θωνος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek Πυθώ (Pūthṓ) (also Πυθών (Pūthṓn)), the old name of Delphi, with the suffix -ων.^[2][3][4][5] Πυθώ itself has no accepted etymology.^[6][7] Wiktionary suggests a link with Proto-Indo-European *dʰewb- (“deep, hollow”), with reference to monsters living in caves.^[1][8] Ancient writers connected the place name with πύθω (púthō, “to rot”), because the serpent that Apollo killed was said to have rotted there.^[6][7][9] Chantraine and Frisk call this a popular etymology, and Strabo already objected that the vowels differ in length.^[6][7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The serpent killed by Apollo is named Python in the historian Ephorus, quoted by Strabo, and in Apollodorus' mythography.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

The oldest version of the story, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, tells of an unnamed female dragon whose corpse rotted at Delphi; later the dragon is male and named Python.^[9] It was said to have guarded the oracle at the foot of Parnassus.^[4][11]

From the serpent of the oracle the name came to mean a spirit of divination: in Acts 16:16 a slave girl “has a spirit, a python”, that lets her foretell the future.^[2][4][12] Plutarch says that ventriloquists, who were believed to have such a spirit in their belly, were in his day called πύθωνες, and Hesychius glosses the word as a ventriloquist and as a prophetic spirit.^[4][2][13] Πύθων was also a common personal name, with over 200 attestations in the LGPN, among them an orator from Byzantium who served Philip of Macedon.^[14][15][10]

Latin Python gave English the name of the mythical serpent (1580s).^[8] Modern Greek uses the word for the serpent of myth and, in the form πύθων, as a zoological name for a genus of constrictor snakes, borrowed back from English python.^[3]

Timeline

• 1st century BC to 1st century AD – Strabo quotes the historian Ephorus, who names the serpent slain by Apollo.^[2][10][16]
• 2nd century BC – Apollodorus tells the story of the serpent Python.^[2][16]
• 1st century AD – The Acts of the Apostles speaks of a slave girl with a spirit of divination, a python.^[2][4][17]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch says that ventriloquists are now called πύθωνες.^[2][4][16]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius glosses it as a ventriloquist and as a prophetic spirit.^[13]
• 1580s – English takes Python through Latin.^[8]

Meanings

Proper noun

1. Python, the serpent killed by Apollo at Delphi.^[2][10][18]

Noun

1. (New Testament) A spirit of divination, or a person possessed by one.^{[2][4][18][12]}
2. (in the plural) Ventriloquists, believed to prophesy by a spirit in the belly.^[2][4][13]

Related words

• Πυθώ (Pūthṓ)
• Πυθών (Pūthṓn)
• Latin Python
• English python

Usage notes

Ammonius and the Etymologicum Magnum distinguish the oxytone feminine Πυθών, the place, from the barytone masculine Πύθων, the serpent.^[19][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
5. ^ Strong, James (1890), A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, New York: Hunt & Eaton
6. ^ a b c Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
7. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b c Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ a b c d Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
11. ^ Τεγόπουλος, Γ.; Φυτράκης, Ε. (1997), Μείζον Ελληνικό Λεξικό, Athens: Αρμονία
12. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
13. ^ a b c Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
14. ^ LGPN-Ling: Etymology and Semantics of Ancient Greek Personal Names, ANHIMA/EPHE and Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, Oxford, https://lgpn-ling.huma-num.fr
15. ^ Adler, Ada, ed. (1928–1938), Suidae Lexicon, 5 vols, Leipzig: Teubner
16. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
17. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
18. ^ a b Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
19. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
20. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press