βύρσα

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /býr.sa/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈβyr.sa/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈvyr.sa/^[1]

Forms

βῠ́ρσᾰ (búrsa) f (genitive βῠ́ρσης); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a technical term without an etymology.^[2][3] Furnée, cited by Beekes, takes it as Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, comparing Hesychius' gloss ἀμυρτόν (amurtón, “cloth”), and Beekes allows that this may be so.^[2] Wiktionary also mentions a possible connection with Hittite kuršaš.^[1]

Ancient writers derived it from δέρω (dérō, “to flay”), through an Aeolic future, or from ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow”), as the skin round which sweat flows.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus distinguishes hides, probably ox-hides, from other skins, and Euripides calls a drum “the beating of a hide”.^[5][3][6]

Semantic evolution

It was mostly a word for a raw or tanned hide.^[6] Aristophanes jokes about leather with Cleon, the tanner, as in “to smell of leather”, and coins comic compounds on it such as βυρσαίετος (bursaíetos).^[5][3] The usual word for a tanner was βυρσοδέψης (bursodépsēs); the later βυρσεύς (burseús), found in Acts and the papyri, replaced it.^[3] Theocritus uses it for the skin of a live animal, Herodas contemptuously for a man's skin, and Lucian for a wineskin.^[5][6]

Latin borrowed it as bursa.^[1] In Modern Greek βύρσα (výrsa) is a learned word for tanned hide.^[7][3]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Euripides use it for hides and for the skin of a drum.^[5][6]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes jokes with it about Cleon's tannery.^[5][3]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses it for the skin of a live animal.^[5][6]
• 3rd century BC – Herodas uses it contemptuously for human skin.^[5]
• 2nd century AD – Lucian uses it for a wineskin.^[5]
• Modern Greek – Modern Greek βύρσα (výrsa) survives as a learned word.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hide stripped from an animal, raw or tanned, especially an ox-hide; leather.^[5][6]
2. The skin of a live animal.^[5][6]
3. (contemptuous) A person's skin.^[5][6]
4. The skin of a drum.^[6][5]
5. A wineskin.^[5]
6. A screen, or perhaps a sail.^[5]

Word family

• βύρσινος (búrsinos)
• βυρσοδέψης (bursodépsēs)
• βυρσεύς (burseús)

Related words

• Latin bursa

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 f 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. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki