δέλτος

Forms

δέλτος (déltos) f (genitive δέλτου); second declension^[1] Cypriot δάλτος (dáltos), written ta-la-to-ne (accusative) in the syllabic script, in a 5th-century BC inscription.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is probably a Semitic loanword, as most scholars now accept:^[5][6][7] Rosół classes it as a borrowing from Phoenician, whose word for “door” also meant a tablet or writing tablet.^[2] The Hebrew word for “door” also meant the columns of a scroll and, in the Lachish texts, a tablet, and Ugaritic has the same word;^[5][2] compare Akkadian daltu (“door; sluice gate”).^[2] The Cypriot form supports the borrowing.^[5] Like βύβλος (búblos, “papyrus”), it is feminine.^[5][4]

The older explanation, from Fick on, took it as a hewn board, from the root of δαιδάλλω (daidállō) and Latin dolō (“to hew”), with the Cypriot form as an old zero grade, and compared the Germanic word for “tent”, Old High German zelt.^[4][8] Beekes calls this obsolete, since the meanings are too far apart.^[5] A link with the letter name δέλτα (délta), from the same Semitic source, has also been proposed.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Aeschylus uses it figuratively in the Prometheus Bound, of the “recording tablets of the mind”, and Herodotus uses it for a writing tablet.^[3][9]

Semantic evolution

The δέλτος was a wooden panel, or several panels folded together, with a surface of wax written on with a stylus.^[6] Euripides speaks of the folds of a tablet, and Aristophanes of tablets of smoothed boards.^[3] In Sophocles' Women of Trachis it is a tablet of bronze with an inscription.^[3][6] Tragedy also speaks of the tablets of Zeus, on which human crimes are recorded.^[6]

It came to mean any writing: a letter in Plato's letters, a will in Lucian, a sealed bronze tablet in a papyrus, and the books of Homer in an inscription from Corcyra.^[3][4] Dionysius of Halicarnassus calls the Roman Twelve Tables αἱ δώδεκα δέλτοι.^[3] The Septuagint uses it in 1 Maccabees.^[10] Its diminutives were δελτίον (deltíon) (Herodotus, papyri) and δελτάριον (deltárion) (Polybius, Plutarch).^[4][8] Photius glosses it as a small tablet or label.^[11]

The modern Modern Greek δέλτος (déltos) is a learned revival, used in the phrase “the tablets of history”, perhaps after French tablette.^[12]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it of the tablets of the mind.^[3][9][7]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a writing tablet, and Sophocles for a bronze tablet.^[3][6][7]
• 5th century BC – A Cypriot inscription has the form δάλτος.^[2]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it of a letter.^[3][4][7]
• 1st century BC – Dionysius of Halicarnassus calls the Roman Twelve Tables the twelve δέλτοι.^[3][7]
• 2nd century AD – Lucian uses it of a will.^[3][7]
• 9th century AD – Photius glosses it as a small tablet or label.^[11][7]
• Modern Greek – It survives as a learned word, δέλτος (déltos), in the phrase “the tablets of history”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A writing tablet, of wood with a waxed surface, often of several panels folded together; figuratively, the tablets of the mind.^[6][3]
2. A tablet of bronze with an inscription.^[6][3]
3. Any piece of writing: a letter, a will, a book.^[3]
4. (in the plural) The Roman Twelve Tables.^[3]

Word family

• δελτίον (deltíon)
• δελτίδιον (deltídion)
• δελτάριον (deltárion)
• δελτόομαι (deltóomai)

Related words

• δάλτος (dáltos)
• δέλτα (délta)

Usage notes

Photius records a different word δέλτος, glossed as ἀγαθός (agathós, “good”);^[3] its origin is uncertain, and a connection with βελτίων (beltíōn, “better”) has been suggested.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e 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
6. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
8. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
9. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
11. ^ a b Photius, Lexicon, ed. Christos Theodoridis, vol. 1 (Α–Δ) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982); ed. Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1822)
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki