εἴκοσι

Forms

εἴκοσῐ (eíkosi), indeclinable; before a vowel εἴκοσιν.^[2][3] Epic ἐείκοσι(ν), Doric ϝίκατι, Heraclean ϝείκατι, Laconian βείκατι (Hesychius), and εἴκατι in Theocritus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *ewī́kəti,^[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *dwi-dḱm̥t-iH (“twenty”), a dual meaning “two decades”, made of *dwi- (“two”) and the stem of δέκα (déka, “ten”).^[4][1] Homeric ἐείκοσι (eeíkosi) stands for an older form with /w/ and a long /ī/, and Beekes, following Kortlandt, takes its first vowel as the trace of the initial /d/ of the Indo-European word.^[4][5] Doric and Boeotian have ϝίκατι (wíkati), the regular form, with ⟨α⟩ from the syllabic nasal and /t/ kept; in εἴκοσι the /t/ became /s/ and the ⟨ο⟩ probably came from εἰκοστός (eikostós), which took it from τριακοστός (triakostós) and τριάκοντα (triákonta).^[4][5][6]

Cognate with Sanskrit विंशति (viṃśatí), Avestan vīsaiti, Latin vīgintī and Old Armenian քսան (kʻsan).^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad it means “twenty”, more often in the Epic form ἐείκοσι(ν).^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

It was the ordinary numeral in every period, indeclinable, combined with units as in εἴκοσι τρεῖς, “twenty-three”, in the New Testament; the Christian texts also wrote it with the numeral sign κʹ.^[8] The Doric form survived in literary Doric, in Theocritus and Callimachus.^[3][2] Medieval and Modern Greek keep the ancient word as Modern Greek είκοσι (eíkosi).^[9][10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses εἴκοσι and the Epic ἐείκοσι(ν).^[2][7]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses εἴκοσι.^[7][6]
• 5th century BC – The Gortyn law code has the Doric form ϝίκατι (wíkati).^[2]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses the Doric εἴκατι (eíkati).^[2][3]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament combines it with units, εἴκοσι τρεῖς and εἴκοσι πέντε.^[8]
• Modern Greek – είκοσι (eíkosi) continues it.^[10]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Twenty.^[2][3][8]

Related words

• εἰκοστός (eikostós)
• δέκα (déka)
• Latin vīgintī

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
7. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b c 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
9. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki