βουβών

Forms

βουβών (boubṓn) m (genitive βουβῶνος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][3] It is formed like other names of body parts in -ών, such as μυών (muṓn, “cluster of muscles”) and σιαγών (siagṓn, “jaw”).^[2][4][3] An old comparison with a Sanskrit dual word for the groin and lower belly is tempting to Frisk, but Beekes doubts it, and Chantraine notes its different structure.^[3][2][4] The link with βουνός (bounós, “hill”) proposed by Persson would mean that the first sense was “swelling in the groin”, but Beekes holds it morphologically impossible.^[4][2] The DGE mentions a view that it is an expressive reduplicated form of a root “to swell”, and Wiktionary also lists that possibility.^[5][1] If the late variant βομβών (bombṓn) is reliable, Beekes would take the word as Pre-Greek, but Chantraine and Frisk explain that variant as a distortion after βόμβος (bómbos, “booming”).^[2][4][3]

Ancient writers derived it from βαίνω (baínō, “to go”) with the intensive prefix βου- (bou-), or from the word for “hill”, because the swelling grows like a hill.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it once, in the Iliad (4.492), for the groin of a warrior struck there by a spear.^[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Aristotle defines the groin as the part shared by the thigh and the belly.^[8] In Hippocratic medicine the word was applied to the glands of the groin, and especially to these glands when swollen, a bubo.^[8][2][4] Aristophanes has the verb βουβωνιάω (boubōniáō, “to suffer from swollen glands”).^[3] Menander and Plutarch still use it for the groin.^[10]

In medieval Greek it is the groin and also the plague, named after its swellings.^[11] Modern Greek has it as the learned Modern Greek βουβώνας (vouvónas), the groin in anatomy.^[12][13]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for the groin.^[7][8]
• 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writers use it for the glands of the groin and their swelling.^[8][9]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle defines the groin in his History of Animals.^[8]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Menander uses it for a swollen gland.^[8]
• 1st century AD – Josephus uses it as a transcription of Latin bubo (“owl”).^[8][5]
• 15th century AD – Doukas uses the variant βομβών for the plague.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The groin.^[8][10]
2. (medicine) A gland of the groin; a swollen gland, a bubo.^[8][5]

Word family

• βουβωνιάω (boubōniáō)
• βουβωνίσκος (boubōnískos)
• βουβώνιον (boubṓnion)

Related words

• Modern Greek βουβώνας (vouvónas)

Usage notes

A separate βουβών, used by Josephus for the eagle-owl, is a transcription of Latin bubo.^[5][8]

References

1. ^ a b 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e 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
5. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
6. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
7. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας