βολβός

Forms

βολβός (bolbós) m (genitive βολβοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is an expressive, sound-symbolic word with a kind of reduplication and no direct relatives.^[2][1][3] It recalls words for round, globular things, such as Latin bulla (“water bubble”) and Lithuanian bur̃bulas (“water bubble”), and is also similar to Old Armenian բողկ (boġk, “radish”).^[2][1][3] Beekes thinks Sanskrit बल्बज (balbaja, “a kind of grass”) a less adequate comparison.^[2] Babiniotis adds a possible link with Ancient Greek βῶλος (bôlos, “clod”), to which Beekes also refers.^[4][2]

Latin bulbus is a loan from it.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Attic comedy and in Plato in the 5th and 4th centuries BC, for an edible bulb, probably the tassel hyacinth.^[5][6][7][4]

Semantic evolution

The edible bulb was a common food in comedy, and Plato mentions it.^[6][5] The botanists and doctors then used the word for other bulbous plants: Dioscorides has an “emetic” βολβός for a narcissus and a “wild” one for the meadow saffron, and Theophrastus a “wool-bearing” kind.^[6] A scholiast identified it with the truffle.^[6]

The word passed into Latin as bulbus, and through French into English as bulb, first “an onion” in the 1560s, then the round underground part of a plant, and by 1800 any similar swelling, such as the bulb of a thermometer or a lamp.^[8] Modern Greek has it as the learned word Modern Greek βολβός (volvós).^[9]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes and Plato mention the edible bulb.^[6][5][7][3]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes several kinds of bulb, and Theocritus mentions it.^[6][3]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides names other bulbous plants with it.^[6][3]
• 1560s – English takes bulb from French, ultimately from the Greek word.^[8]
• Modern Greek – It survives as the learned word βολβός.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. An edible bulb, probably that of the tassel hyacinth.^[5][6][2]
2. Any of several bulbous plants, such as a narcissus or the meadow saffron.^[6]

Word family

• βολβοφακῆ (bolbophakê)
• βολβώδης (bolbṓdēs)
• βολβωρυχέω (bolbōrukhéō)

Related words

• βῶλος (bôlos)
• Latin bulbus
• English bulb

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
4. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
5. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki