δάκρυον

Forms

δᾰ́κρῠον (dákruon) n (genitive δᾰκρῠ́ου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Ancient Greek δάκρυ (dákru, “tear”), made from its plural δάκρυα (dákrua), which was taken for the plural of a neuter in -ον.^[1][2][3] The older form is poetic, while δάκρυον became the usual Ionic-Attic word,^[2] and Chantraine notes that it is more frequent in the Odyssey than in the Iliad.^[2] The old noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *dáḱru (“tear”).^[4][5]

Cognates have the initial d- in Germanic and Celtic, for example Old High German trahan and Old Irish dér, while the Indo-Iranian and Baltic words lack it.^[2]

Ancient writers tried other derivations: Orion and the Etymologicum Gudianum connected it with δάκνω (dáknō, “to bite”), because tears sting the eyes, and the Etymologicum Magnum also with κρύος (krúos, “frost”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on, meaning a tear: in the Iliad the eyes of a man who hears of a death fill with tears (17.696), with the old instrumental δακρυόφι (dakruóphi).^[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

The word was used from the 5th century BC for anything that drops like tears: Herodotus speaks of the gum of the acacia, the Hippocratic writers of the juice of an onion, and Aristotle of the sap of trees and of amber.^[8][10] Theophrastus uses it of the bulbils of the lily, and a Hellenistic epigram for weeping itself.^[8] In the magical papyri “tears of a baboon” is a secret name for dill juice.^[11]

The New Testament uses it for tears, as in Luke 7:38; the plural also means weeping.^[12] The word lived on in medieval Greek in the shorter form δάκρυ, and Modern Greek has δάκρυ (dákry).^[13][14][15]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for tears.^[7][8]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for the gum of a tree.^[8][10]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for the sap of trees and for amber.^[8][3]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it for the bulbils of the lily.^[8][3]
• 1st century AD – Luke uses the dative plural δάκρυσιν of a woman's tears.^[12]
• Modern Greek – The word survives as δάκρυ (dákry).^[14][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tear, a teardrop; in the plural, tears, weeping.^[8][10][12]
2. Something that drops like tears: gum, sap or resin of a plant; amber.^[8][10]
3. The bulbils of the lily.^[8]

Related words

• δάκρυ (dákru)
• δακρύω (dakrúō)

Usage notes

In the New Testament the dative plural is the old form δάκρυσιν, a remnant of the poetic δάκρυ.^[12][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
4. ^ Βικιλεξικό, the Greek Wiktionary, https://el.wiktionary.org
5. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ Muñoz Delgado, Luis (2001), Léxico de magia y religión en los papiros mágicos griegos, Madrid: CSIC
12. ^ a b c d Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
13. ^ a b 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας