δοῦλος

Forms

δοῦλος (doûlos) m (genitive δούλου); second declension^[1] Cretan and Theocritean δῶλος (dôlos).^[2][3] Mycenaean Greek do-e-ro, feminine Mycenaean Greek do-e-ra.^[4]

Etymology

The Mycenaean forms Mycenaean Greek do-e-ro and Mycenaean Greek do-e-ra show that the ⟨ου⟩ of δοῦλος is contracted from ⟨οε⟩, probably from older ⟨οhε⟩.^[5][6][7] It has no Indo-European etymology: Beekes holds that it is certainly not inherited and thinks it may well be Pre-Greek.^[5] Chantraine finds a borrowing from Carian or Lydian not absurd, as Lambertz and Benveniste argued, but Beekes objects that the word is already Mycenaean, too early for such a loan.^[6][5][7] The DGE instead derives it from *dm̥s-elo-, built on the root for “house” seen in δόμος (dómos) and δεσπότης (despótēs).^[4] Semitic sources have been proposed, such as Akkadian dullu (“toil, service”) and a Canaanite word for a servant, but Rosół lists them as rejected.^[8][1]

Ancient writers derived it from δέω (déō) “to bind”, because prisoners of war were put in fetters, from δέος (déos) “fear”, or from δύη (dúē) “misery”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Mycenaean tablets record Mycenaean Greek do-e-ro and Mycenaean Greek do-e-ra, a male and a female slave or servant.^[4][5] Homer twice has the feminine δούλη (doúlē), a bondwoman, but not the masculine noun, which appears first in Aeschylus.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Strictly it was the slave born into bondage, as opposed to one made a slave, but it soon meant any slave, the opposite of the master, δεσπότης (despótēs), and of the free man, ἐλεύθερος (eleútheros).^[2][11] Aeschylus and Herodotus use it of Persians and other peoples subject to a despot, and the Greeks boasted that they were “slaves of no one”.^[2][3] Figuratively one could be a slave to money, to novelty or to pleasures.^[2][3] As an adjective it meant enslaved or slavish.^[3]

In the Septuagint and the New Testament it is also the servant of God, a sense that Callimachus already had of a goddess's servant.^[3][11] Spicq stresses that in the 1st century the word still named a legal status, a person owned by a master, so that “servant” obscures its meaning.^[12] Medieval Greek added the sense of a servant, and Modern Greek δούλος (doúlos) means both a slave and, by extension, a person deprived of rights or a servant; the polite phrase “your servant” is modelled on French serviteur.^[13][14]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – The Linear B tablets record Mycenaean Greek do-e-ro and Mycenaean Greek do-e-ra.^[4][5]
• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey have only the feminine δούλη (doúlē), a bondwoman.^[2]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses the masculine of slaves and of subjects of the Persian king.^[2][10][4]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides contrasts born slaves with those made slaves.^[2][4]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it both for slaves and for servants of God.^[11]
• Modern Greek – It survives as Modern Greek δούλος (doúlos).^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A born bondman, as opposed to one enslaved later.^[2]
2. A slave, as opposed to a master or a free man.^[2][3][11]
3. (plural) Subjects of a despot.^[3][2]
4. (figurative) A slave to something, such as money or pleasures.^[3][2]
5. A servant of a deity; in the New Testament, of God or Christ.^[3][11]

Adjective

1. Of a slave, slavish, servile.^[3][2]
2. Enslaved, subject, of a city or a country.^[3][2]

Word family

• δούλη (doúlē)
• δουλεύω (douleúō)
• δουλεία (douleíā)
• δουλόω (doulóō)
• δουλοσύνη (doulosúnē)
• δουλικός (doulikós)
• δούλειος (doúleios)

Usage notes

Hesychius records a second δοῦλος meaning “house” or “the women's gathering place”,^[15] and Frisk thought it important for the etymology, while Chantraine and Latte point to a reading δοῦμος instead.^{[2][15][7][6]}

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 l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
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 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
7. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
9. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
10. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
11. ^ a b c d e 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
12. ^ Spicq, Ceslas (1994), Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, tr. James D. Ernest, 3 vols, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
13. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
15. ^ a b Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)