Etymologically
Log in

δόμος

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 20:20. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /dó.mos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈðo.mos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈðo.mos/[1]

Forms

δόμος (dómos) m (genitive δόμου); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *dómos,[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *dṓm (“house”).[1][2] Beekes and Chantraine see in the o-stem a remodelling of this old root noun, whose other traces are in δεσπότης (despótēs) and δάπεδον (dápedon), and of which δῶμα (dôma) is another adaptation, rather than a verbal noun from δέμω (démō, “to build”);[2][3] LSJ still derives it from that verb.[4]

Cognate with Sanskrit दम (dáma), Latin domus, Russian дом (dom) and Old Armenian տուն (tun).[1][2] A u-stem is found in Sanskrit दमूनस् (dámūnas-, “housemate”).[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

From Homer on it means a house or home, and also a room in a house; in the Iliad it is also the house of a god and the house of Hades.[4][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The word is mainly poetic, very common in tragedy, often in the plural for one house; prose said οἶκος (oîkos) or οἰκία (oikía).[4][6] Homer also uses it for a sheepfold and for a wasps' or bees' nest.[4][6] Tragedy uses it for the household and the family, the line of a dynasty, and Bacchylides calls a pyre a “house of wood”.[6][4]

Herodotus has a technical sense, a course of stone or brick in a building, which Polybius and Diodorus also use.[4][6][8] That sense alone survives in Modern Greek δόμος (dómos), a learned word of building.[9]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for a house, a room, a temple and the house of Hades.[4][6]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of the jar that holds Hope.[6][5]
  • 5th century BC – Tragedy uses it for a household and a royal family.[6][4]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a course of stone in a building.[4][6][5]
  • Modern Greek – δόμος is a course of stones or bricks.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A house, home; often in the plural for one house.[4][6]
  2. A room or chamber of a house.[4][6]
  3. The house of a god, a temple; the house of Hades, the underworld.[4][6]
  4. The dwelling of animals: a sheepfold, a wasps' or bees' nest.[4][6]
  5. (tragedy) A household, family or dynasty.[4][6]
  6. A course of stones or bricks in a building.[4][6]
  7. A strand of gut in the springs of a torsion engine.[4]

Word family

  • πρόδομος (pródomos)
  • δομέω (doméō)
  • δομόω (domóō)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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. ^ 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
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  8. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki