γίγας

Forms

γῐ́γᾱς (gígās) m (genitive γῐ́γᾰντος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The common noun is the name of the mythical Γίγας (Gígās), the Giants.^[1][2] Beekes, following Kretschmer, considers it probably Pre-Greek: the word looks reduplicated, and its suffix ⟨-αντ-⟩ is that of other names such as Ἄβαντες and Κορύβαντες and of ἀλίβας (alíbas).^[3][4] Chantraine also thinks it may be a substrate word, and dismisses as baseless the many etymologies proposed by ancient and modern scholars.^[5] Petersson compared Latvian gāgans (“long rope; giant”), a link that Kretschmer, Frisk and Beekes doubt.^[4][3][5]

Ancient writers derived it from γῆ (gê, “earth”), as if the Giants were those “coming out of the earth”, or from a verb meaning “to hold”, reduplicated.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Odyssey the Giants are a savage, arrogant race: they are named beside the Cyclopes, and a people is said to look not like men but like Giants.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Homer mentions the Giants rarely, and Hesiod makes them sons of Gaia and Ouranos, born of the earth; the battle of the Olympian gods against the Giants, which Homer does not clearly describe, later became a great theme of art and literature.^[5][2] Tragedy applied the word to a huge and powerful warrior, such as Capaneus in Aeschylus, and Aeschylus also used it as an adjective, “mighty as a Giant”, of the west wind.^[2][8][5] Hesychius explains this use as “great, strong, prodigious”.^[5][2]

The Septuagint uses it about forty times, mostly in the plural, for giants or mighty men, beginning with the giants of Genesis 6.4.^[9] A gloss of Hesychius renders it “ruler, strong man”, with a reference to Genesis 10.8, and Zonaras cites the psalm in which the sun runs its course like a giant.^[10][7] It was borrowed into Coptic.^[11]

Latin borrowed it as gigas, from which, through a Vulgar Latin form and Old French, English has giant.^[12] Medieval Greek used it for an enormously large or strong and brave person.^[13] Modern Greek has both the medieval form γίγαντας (gígantas), made from the accusative, and the learned γίγας (gígas), for a very large person and figuratively for someone who far surpasses others.^[14][13]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey names the Giants beside the Cyclopes.^[2][5]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony makes the earth-born Giants sons of Gaia.^[5][2][15]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus calls Capaneus a giant and uses the word as an adjective of the west wind.^[2][8]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato has the compound γιγαντομαχία (gigantomakhía), “battle of the Giants”.^[5][4]
• 3rd century BC – The Septuagint uses it for the giants of Genesis 6.4.^[9][15]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts use γίγας (gígas) and γίγαντας (gígantas) for a huge or very strong man.^[13]
• Modern Greek – γίγαντας (gígantas) means a giant, literally and figuratively.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A Giant, one of the mythical race of the Giants, sons of Gaia; mostly in the plural.^[2][8][5]
2. A huge and powerful man, a mighty warrior.^[8][2]
3. (Septuagint) A giant, a mighty man.^[9][10]

Adjective

1. Mighty, powerful as a Giant, of the west wind in Aeschylus.^[2][8]

Word family

• γιγαντομαχία (gigantomakhía)
• γιγαντικός (gigantikós)

Related words

• Γίγας (Gígās)
• Latin gigas
• English giant

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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
6. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ a b c Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ a b Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
11. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
12. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b c Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
14. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
15. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux