Etymologically
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αὔριον

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ǎu̯.ri.on/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈa.βri.on/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈa.vri.on/[1]

Forms

αὔρῐον (aúrion) [1]

Etymology

It is built on *αὖρι (*aûri), the old locative of an /r/-stem of Proto-Indo-European *h₂ews- (“dawn”), perhaps extended after σήμερον (sḗmeron, “today”).[2][3][1][4] The same stem is in Lithuanian aušrà (“dawn”) and Sanskrit उस्र (usrá, “morning light”), and within Greek in ἠώς (ēṓs, “dawn”), ἀήρ (āḗr, “mist, air”) and perhaps ἦρι (êri, “early”).[2][1][5] Apollonius of Rhodes has the compound ἄγχαυρος (ánkhauros, “near the morning”), perhaps from an earlier *ἀγχαύριος (*ankhaúrios).[2][3]

Ancient writers derived it from αὔρα (aúra, “breeze”), the morning breeze.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

From Homer on it means “tomorrow”: the Iliad (9.357) and the Odyssey (1.272) use it, and also the phrase “till tomorrow”.[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Classical writers use it as an adverb and also, with the article, as “the next day”: Sophocles and later Theocritus and the New Testament have τὸ αὔριον or ἡ αὔριον.[8][10] Plato has “tomorrow at this time”, and inscriptions invite people to dinner “for tomorrow”.[7]

In the New Testament it also means “soon”: “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32), and it is set against “today” in Matthew 6:30.[7][10] The derived adjective αὐρινός (aurinós, “of tomorrow”) appears in the glossaries.[3] Medieval Greek kept the word, with the form in -ιο still used today, and it is Modern Greek αύριο (ávrio).[11][12][4]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for “tomorrow”.[7][9]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it in the Works and Days.[9]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles and Euripides use it, also with the article, for the next day.[8][9]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses “tomorrow at this time”.[7]
  • 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for the next day and for “soon”.[10][7]
  • 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch derives it from the morning breeze.[6]
  • Medieval Greek – The vernacular has the form αύριο (ávrio), which Modern Greek keeps.[11][12]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. Tomorrow, on the next day.[7][8]
  2. (with the article) The next day.[8][10]
  3. (New Testament) Soon, shortly.[7][10]

Word family

  • αὐρινός (aurinós)
  • ἠώς (ēṓs)
  • ἀήρ (āḗr)
  • ἦρι (êri)
  • Modern Greek αύριο (ávrio)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  5. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  6. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  10. ^ a b c d e 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
  11. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki