Etymologically
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βάλανος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /bá.la.nos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈβa.la.nos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈva.la.nos/[1]

Forms

βᾰ́λᾰνος (bálanos) f (genitive βᾰλᾰ́νου); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *gʷə́lanos,[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelh₂- (“acorn”), an old Indo-European word for the acorn.[2][1] Beekes starts from a pre-form *gʷl̥h₂-eno- and names an Armenian word for "acorn" as its closest relative.[2][3] Other languages form the word with a dental suffix, as Latin glāns (“acorn”) from *gʷl̥h₂-nd- and Albanian lend, and Baltic has another formation, Lithuanian gìlė.[2][3]

Schwyzer and Curtius connected it with βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”), but Beekes rejects the link, since that verb comes from *gʷelh₁-.[2][1] It is probably unrelated to βαλανεῖον (balaneîon, “bath”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the Odyssey, meaning the acorn, food for people and animals, and Hesiod also has it.[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Herodotus and Xenophon use it for the date of the palm, and generally it named any fruit like an acorn.[4][5] Polybius and the Septuagint use it for the tree that bears them.[4][5]

From its shape it named many other things: a barnacle in Aristotle, the glans of the penis in Aristotle and Aristophanes, the air bladder of a seaweed in Theophrastus, the iron bolt-pin that locked a door bar in Thucydides and Aristophanes, and the pin of a necklace clasp, with a sexual double meaning, in Aristophanes.[4][5] In Hippocratic medicine it was a suppository or a pessary, and in Aristotle the ballot ball that assigned jurors to their courts.[4][5]

Latin borrowed it as balanus.[7] Modern Greek βάλανος (válanos) is a learned word for the glans of the penis, a sense already found in Aristotle, and the acorn is now βαλανίδι (valanídi).[8][9]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Odyssey uses it for acorns.[4][6]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for dates and Thucydides for the bolt-pin of a gate.[4][5][3]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the pin of a door bar and of a necklace clasp.[4][5][3]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for a barnacle, the glans of the penis and a ballot ball.[4][5][3]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it for the tree that bears acorns.[4][3]
  • Modern Greek – The learned Modern Greek βάλανος (válanos) is the anatomical term for the glans.[8][9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An acorn, eaten by people and animals.[4][5]
  2. A fruit like an acorn, especially the date, and with a qualifier other nuts, such as the ben nut.[4][5]
  3. The tree that bears such fruit.[4]
  4. A barnacle.[4]
  5. The glans of the penis.[4]
  6. The air bladder of bladder-wrack, a seaweed.[4]
  7. A bolt-pin dropped through a door bar to lock it, or the pin of a necklace clasp.[4][5]
  8. (medicine) A suppository or pessary.[4]
  9. A ballot ball assigning jurors to courts.[4][5]

Word family

  • βαλανάγρα (balanágrā)
  • βαλανηφάγος (balanēphágos)
  • ἀγριοβάλανος (agriobálanos)
  • βαλάνινος (baláninos)
  • χαμαιβάλανος (khamaibálanos)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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 Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  7. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  9. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας