εὐάζω

Forms

εὐᾱ́ζω (euā́zō) ^[1] Middle εὐάζομαι, in Euripides.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek εὖα (eûa), the ritual cry of the Bacchic rites, which Hesychius glosses as a word of the Lenaean festival and of the mysteries.^[4][5][6] Other forms of the cry are εὐαί (euaí) (Aristophanes), εὐάν (euán) (Euripides) and εὐοῖ (euoî), and grammarians also record spellings with an inner aspiration.^[4][6] Chantraine concludes that the whole group rests on a ritual onomatopoeia.^[6] εἰάζω (eiázō) and αἰάζω (aiázō) are formed from cries in the same way.^[4][5]

Latin borrowed the cries as Latin euhoe and euhān, and a Latin participle renders the Greek one.^[6][4] The same cry may lie in ovō (“to exult”): Beekes holds that this verb cannot be a loan, because it shows an Italic sound change, and Frisk accepts the link if the Latin verb once began with the same diphthong, but Chantraine rather suspects an early borrowing.^[4][5][6] Wiktionary therefore allows that the verb is an inherited onomatopoeia, Proto-Hellenic *euāiyō.^[1]

Under the influence of εὔιος (eúios), a name of Dionysus drawn from the same cry, the verb was also altered to εὐιάζω (euiázō) in Sophocles and Euripides.^[6] The Etymologicum Magnum derived it the other way, from the name of Dionysus through that longer verb, shortened by syncope.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in lyric passages of tragedy: Sophocles' Antigone (1134) and Euripides' Bacchae (1034, and the middle at line 68), of the Bacchants and their chants raising the cry to Bacchus.^[2][3][8]

Semantic evolution

In the classical period the verb belongs to the lyric language of tragedy, and the derivatives εὔασμα (eúasma) (plural, Euripides) and εὐασμός (euasmós) (Hellenistic and later) name the cries themselves.^[4][6] The middle takes the god as its object, “to cry euai to Bacchus”.^[2][3]

Hellenistic and later writers kept it for Bacchic revelry: an epigram of Meleager in the Anthology has it with the dative of Dionysus, Diodorus Siculus and Callistratus use it, and a fragment of Sopater quoted by Athenaeus has a cognate accusative, “to cry euai in a tuneful dance”.^[2][9] Late poetry formed agent nouns, εὐαστής (euastḗs) and εὐαστήρ (euastḗr) with the feminine εὐάστειρα (euásteira) (in the Orphic poems), and the adjective εὐαστικός (euastikós).^[6][5]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Sophocles' Antigone and Euripides' Bacchae use it in lyric passages of the Bacchic cry.^[2][3][8]
• 2nd–1st century BC – Meleager uses it of a cry to Dionysus in an epigram.^[2]
• 1st century BC – Diodorus Siculus uses it in his account of Dionysus' rites.^[2][8]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Athenaeus quotes Sopater, who uses it with a cognate accusative.^[9][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To raise the Bacchic cry εὐαί (euaí), to shout in honour of Bacchus; of chants, to ring with the cry.^[2][3]
2. (middle) To raise the cry to someone, to hail Bacchus with it.^[2][3]
3. With a cognate accusative: to perform (a dance) with Bacchic cries.^[2][9]
4. More generally, to exult, to acclaim with shouts of joy.^[10]

Word family

• εὔασμα (eúasma)
• εὐασμός (euasmós)
• εὐαστής (euastḗs)
• εὐαστήρ (euastḗr)
• εὐάστειρα (euásteira)
• εὐαστικός (euastikós)

Related words

• εὐαί (euaí)
• εὐοῖ (euoî)
• εὔιος (eúios)
• εὐιάζω (euiázō)
• Latin euhoe

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 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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f 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 c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b c Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
10. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli