βήρυλλος

Forms

βήρυλλος (bḗrullos) f (genitive βηρύλλου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Ancient Greek βηρύλλιον (bērúllion), the form in which the name came into Greek, with the stone itself, from India in the Hellenistic period.^[2][3][4] That form is from Prakrit veruliya, from veḷuriya, which was Sanskritized as Sanskrit वैडूर्य (vaiḍūrya).^[2][3][5] The word is Dravidian and was probably named after Vēḷūr, today Bēlūr, a town in southern India.^[2][4][1] The form in ⟨-ιον⟩ reflects the Indian word more closely than the back-formation does.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the Septuagint book of Tobit, of the beryl among the precious stones of the new Jerusalem, and the diminutive βηρύλλιον occurs in Exodus among the stones of the high priest's breastplate.^[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

It is a sea-green gem in later Greek: Dionysius Periegetes and Lucian name it, an epigram calls it the Indian beryl, and the Book of Revelation lists it among the foundation stones of the heavenly city.^[6][9][10] Hesychius also gives it as the name of a plant.^[11][5]

Latin borrowed it as bēryllus, the source of Old French and then English beryl (about 1300); in Medieval Latin the name spread to fine crystal and to eyeglasses, hence German Brille (“spectacles”).^[12][1] The Coptic borrowing is recorded in Sahidic from about 900.^[13] Modern Greek keeps βήρυλλος (víryllos) as the name of the mineral.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 2nd century BC – The Septuagint book of Tobit names it among precious stones.^[7][6]
• 1st century BC – Diodorus Siculus uses the diminutive βηρύλλιον.^[6][3]
• 1st century AD – The Book of Revelation and Josephus name it.^[7][9]
• 2nd century AD – Lucian writes of “beryl stone”.^[6][5]
• About 1300 – English borrows beryl through Old French and Latin.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Beryl, a sea-green precious stone.^[6][5][9]
2. A plant, perhaps the same as βηρύλλιος (bērúllios).^[5][11]

Related words

• βηρύλλιον (bērúllion)
• Latin bēryllus
• English beryl

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
6. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ a b c 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
10. ^ Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
11. ^ a b Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
12. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
14. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
15. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας