αἰχμή

Forms

αἰχμή (aikhmḗ) f (genitive αἰχμῆς); first declension^[1] Mycenaean Greek a3-ka-sa-ma, for /aiksmans/, plural.^[1][2][3] Doric αἰχμά (aikhmá).^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *aiksmā, as the Mycenaean spelling shows, with the /s/ still kept between consonants.^[1][2][3] Beekes and Frisk connect it with Hesychius' gloss αἶκλοι (aîkloi, “the angles of the arrowhead”), and above all with Lithuanian iẽšmas and Old Prussian aysmis “spit”; the original meaning must have been “point”.^[2][5][3] Beekes derives them from the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂eyḱ- (“spear, point”),^[2] perhaps also found in Latin īcō (“to strike”).^[1][5]

Other grades of the same root may be in Cypriot ἰκμαμένος (ikmaménos, “wounded”), Hesychius' ἰκτέα (iktéa, “javelin”) and perhaps ἴκταρ (íktar, “near”); ἴγδις (ígdis, “mortar”) is more doubtful.^[2][5][3]

Ancient writers derived it from ἀΐσσω (aḯssō, “to dart”), as Philoxenus did, or from αἷμα (haîma, “blood”) and χέω (khéō, “to pour”), “shedding blood”.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean tablets record it for the points of spears or arrows.^[3][8] In Homer it is the point of a spear (ἔγχεος αἰχμή), a spear, and the art of fighting with it.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

By extension it named other weapons and blades: Hesiod's sickle-blade, Poseidon's trident and an arrowhead in Aeschylus, a sword in Sophocles.^[4] From the spear it came to mean warfare and battle (Archilochus, Pindar, Herodotus, tragedy), a body of spearmen (Pindar, Euripides) and warlike power (Aeschylus).^[4][3] Chantraine notes that it is a poetic word: apart from Herodotus, who uses it of barbarian warriors, and Xenophon, Ionic and Attic prose avoids it.^[3] Its main compound is αἰχμάλωτος (aikhmálōtos), “prisoner of war”, not yet in Homer.^[3][2]

Modern Greek αιχμή (aichmí) is a learned word for a sharp point or tip; the senses “peak” (as in the phrase for “rush hour”) and “insinuation, barbed remark” follow French pointe.^[10][8][6] Botanists made the genus name Aechmea from it.^[1]

Timeline

• Mycenaean period – Linear B tablets record it for spear- or arrowheads.^[3][8]
• Homer – The Iliad uses it of the point of a spear, a spear and spearmanship.^[9]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of the blade of a sickle.^[4][11]
• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses it of warfare.^[4][11]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it of Poseidon's trident and of an arrowhead.^[4][11]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for warfare and for the spears of barbarian warriors.^[3][4][11]
• 1st century BC – Philoxenus derives it from the verb “to dart”.^[6]
• Modern Greek – The learned word means a point, a peak and a barbed remark.^[10][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The point of a spear; a spearhead; an arrowhead or a blade.^[4][9]
2. A spear; a spear-shaft.^[4][9]
3. Fighting with the spear, spearmanship.^[4][9]
4. Warfare, combat.^[4][1]
5. A body of spearmen.^[4]
6. (figurative) Warlike power or temper.^[4][1]

Word family

• αἰχμάζω (aikhmázō)
• αἰχμάλωτος (aikhmálōtos)
• αἰχμητής (aikhmētḗs)
• ὁμαιχμία (homaikhmíā)
• αἰχμοφόρος (aikhmophóros)

Related words

• ἴκταρ (íktar)
• Lithuanian iešmas

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 i j k 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
7. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
9. ^ a b c d e Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge