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δάκτυλος

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δάκτυλος1 finger, toe

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /dák.ty.los/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈðak.ty.los/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈðak.ty.los/[1]

Forms

δᾰ́κτῠλος (dáktulos) m (genitive δᾰκτῠ́λου); second declension[1] Boeotian δακκύλιος (dakkúlios); poets have a neuter plural δάκτυλα.[2][3]

Etymology

The finger is probably Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek.[2][1] Beekes starts from Boeotian δακκύλιος (dakkúlios), whose ⟨κκ⟩ can hardly come from ⟨κτ⟩, and reconstructs *δάτκυλος (*dátkulos), with the Pre-Greek cluster -κτ- from -τκ- and the suffix -υλ-.[2][4]

Chantraine finds no direct Indo-European match: Old Norse taka (“to take”) and Latin digitus (“finger”) look similar but cannot be connected directly.[5] Wiktionary allows a relation with the Latin word, though Beekes calls it unclear.[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer already has it in the compound ῥοδοδάκτυλος (rhododáktulos) “rosy-fingered”, the epithet of Dawn.[5][6] A Hesiodic fragment names the Idaean Dactyls, mythical craftsmen of Crete; the simple word is found in Alcaeus, who says “a finger is the day” of the little daylight left.[3][7]

Semantic evolution

In Ionic and Attic it is both the finger and the toe, the latter in Aristophanes and Xenophon.[7][3][2] Herodotus uses it as a measure, the breadth of a finger, and of counting on the fingers.[3][7] Aristophanes and Plato name with it the metrical foot of one long and two short syllables, the dactyl, likened to the joints of a finger.[7][3] Its derivative δακτύλιος (daktúlios) is a ring.[2]

The Septuagint and Luke speak of “the finger of God”.[3] Latin borrowed the word as Latin dactylus, and English, French and Italian have learned forms such as English -dactyl and English dactylo-.[1] In medieval Greek it became the neuter Modern Greek δάχτυλο (dáchtylo), from the accusative, with /kt/ turned to /xt/; this is the everyday Modern Greek word, while the learned Modern Greek δάκτυλος (dáktylos) survives for a hidden hand behind events and for the dactyl in metre.[8][6]

Timeline

  • 7th–6th century BC – Alcaeus uses it as a measure of the remaining day.[3][7][9]
  • 6th century BC – Hipponax uses it of the finger.[7][9]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of a finger's breadth.[3][7][9]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato and Aristophanes use it of the dactyl in metre.[3][7][9]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – The Septuagint speaks of the finger of God.[3]
  • Medieval Greek – The neuter δάχτυλο(ν) replaces it in everyday speech.[8][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A finger.[3][7]
  2. A toe; also the toe of an animal or bird.[3][7]
  3. A finger's breadth, as a measure of length.[3][7]
  4. (prosody) A dactyl.[3][7]
  5. (in the plural) A kind of dance.[3]

Word family

  • δακτύλιος (daktúlios)
  • βραχυδάκτυλος (brakhudáktulos)
  • δακτυλοειδής (daktuloeidḗs)
  • δακτυλόπους (daktulópous)
  • ἑρμοδάκτυλον (hermodáktulon)
  • παχυδάκτυλος (pakhudáktulos)

δάκτυλος2 date (fruit)

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /dák.ty.los/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈðak.ty.los/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈðak.ty.los/[1]

Forms

δᾰ́κτῠλος (dáktulos) m (genitive δᾰκτῠ́λου); second declension[1]

Etymology

The date is a Semitic loanword, reshaped by folk etymology after the word for “finger”.[2][5][10] Beekes and Chantraine compare Arabic دَقَل (daqal, “a kind of date palm”), and Wiktionary adds Biblical Hebrew דֶּקֶל (deqel, “date palm”).[2][5][1] Rosół lists Aramaic and Syriac words for the palm and the date palm.[10] He thinks the original Greek form was *δάκκυλος (*dákkulos), changed by dissimilation and by the influence of the word for “finger”.[10] Beekes explains the reshaping by the likeness of the palm leaf to a hand.[10][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Aristotle is the first to use it for the date, the fruit of the date palm.[3][2][10]

Semantic evolution

Artemidorus also uses it for the date.[3] In Latin, Pliny and Columella use dactylus for a kind of grape.[3][5]

Timeline

  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for the date.[3][2]
  • 2nd century AD – Artemidorus uses it in the same sense.[3][9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A date, the fruit of the date palm.[3][2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  9. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  10. ^ a b c d e Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang