βοτανικός

Forms

βοτᾰνῐκός (botanikós) m (feminine βοτᾰνῐκή, neuter βοτᾰνῐκόν); first/second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek βοτάνη (botánē, “herb, plant”) + -ικός (-ikós), “of herbs”.^[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the 1st century AD, in the preface of Dioscorides' Materia medica, where the knowledge of medicinal plants is called the “botanical” tradition.^[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Greek medicine it described what belongs to herbs: Plutarch speaks of herbal drugs, Dioscorides of herbal remedies, and Galen of a physician who treats with herbs, and he calls herb-gatherers βοτανικοί.^[5][4] In Byzantine Greek a βοτανικός was also a hermit who lived on plants alone.^[1] It was borrowed as Latin botanicus, the source of English botanic.^[1]

Modern Greek βοτανικός (votanikós) is a learned word taken from the Hellenistic one and means “of plants”.^[7] The phrase βοτανικός κήπος (votanikós kípos), “botanical garden”, is a calque of French jardin botanique,^[7] the masculine used alone names the Botanikos district of Athens, and the feminine βοτανική (votanikí) is botany.^[3]

Timeline

• 1st century AD – Dioscorides calls the science of medicinal plants the “botanical” tradition.^[5][4]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it of herbal drugs.^[5][4]
• 2nd century AD – Galen uses it of a physician who treats with herbs and of herb-gatherers.^[5][4]
• Modern Greek – The learned word βοτανικός (votanikós) means “of plants”, as in “botanical garden”.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of herbs; made of herbs.^[5][4]
2. Concerned with plants or herbal remedies: the science of medicinal plants; a herbalist physician.^[5][4]

Noun

1. (neuter plural) Herbal remedies.^[4][5]
2. (masculine plural) Herb-gatherers.^[5][1]
3. (Byzantine) A hermit who lived on plants alone.^[1]

Related words

• βοτάνη (botánē)
• Latin botanicus
• English botanic

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
3. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki