Etymologically
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βδέω

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /bdé.ɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈβðe.o/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈvðe.o/[1]

Forms

βδέω (bdéō) [1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *bzdḗō,[1] from Proto-Indo-European *pesd- (“to break wind”), an old Indo-European verb.[2][3][1] The Greek verb must go back to a form *βζδέω (*bzdéō), with the voiced cluster later simplified.[2] The DGE takes the root to be of onomatopoeic origin.[4]

Cognate with Russian бздеть (bzdetʹ), Lithuanian bezdėti and Latin pēdō, from *pezdō.[2][4] Beekes compares πέρδομαι (pérdomai, “to break wind loudly”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Aristophanes' comedies, meaning to fart.[2][5][6]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs to comedy.[2] Aristophanes also uses the middle for people farting on one another, and an internal object: someone who “farts not frankincense”.[5][7] Late writers formed an aorist ἔβδευσα (ébdeusa).[7][2] Medical writers used the present participle as the name of a household beetle or cockroach, “the farting one”, whose fat was a remedy.[7] Derivatives include βδύλλω (bdúllō, “to break wind from fear”), and Beekes compares βδελυρός (bdelurós, “disgusting”) and βδελύσσομαι (bdelússomai, “to feel disgust”).[2]

Timeline

  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it in the Acharnians, the Knights, Peace and Wealth.[6][7][4]
  • 2nd century AD – Galen and the physician Archigenes use the participle as the name of a cockroach.[7][4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To fart, break wind.[7][5]
  2. (middle) To fart on one another.[5]
  3. With an internal object, to give off something by farting.[5][7]

Word family

  • βδύλλω (bdúllō)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
  4. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  5. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press