εὐλογέω

Forms

εὐλογέω (eulogéō) ^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek εὔλογος (eúlogos, “reasonable; well spoken”),^[2][3] itself from Ancient Greek εὐ- (eu-, “well”) + λόγος (lógos, “speech”), with the verbal suffix -έω.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Aeschylus' Agamemnon, where a city is to be spoken well of, and then in Sophocles and Euripides, meaning to praise.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In classical Greek it meant to speak well of, praise, and in Euripides gods were said to honour a man by their deeds.^[4][2] Aristophanes uses it of praising just and unjust things alike, and a rhetorical treatise of the 4th century BC uses it of delivering a panegyric.^[4] Dedications from Ptolemaic Egypt praise gods such as Pan and Isis with it.^[4][6]

The Septuagint, where it occurs over five hundred times, uses it chiefly to translate the Hebrew piel of Biblical Hebrew בָּרַךְ (bāraḵ), and so it took on the senses of that verb: to bless, of God bestowing favour and of people calling it down on others, and to praise God; occasionally it is a euphemism for "curse".^[7][8] The New Testament has both: people bless God (that is, praise and thank him), Jesus gives thanks over bread and blesses children, and God blesses people.^[6][2] The verb was borrowed into Sahidic Coptic, attested from about AD 600.^[9] Modern Greek ευλογώ (evlogó) "bless" is a learned form of the Hellenistic verb, used above all of God and of the clergy.^[10][3]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides use it for speaking well of someone.^[4][2]
• 4th century BC – Isocrates uses the passive of being praised.^[4][2]
• 3rd century BC – A dedication from Egypt uses it of praising a god, and the Septuagint uses it for "bless".^[6][7]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it of blessing people and food and of praising God.^[6][2]
• About AD 600 – The earliest Coptic manuscripts have the borrowed word.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To speak well of, praise, eulogize.^[2][4]
2. Of gods, to honour someone by their actions.^[2][4]
3. To praise or thank a god, and (Septuagint, New Testament) to praise God, give thanks.^[4][6]
4. (Septuagint, New Testament) To bless: of God, to bestow favour; of people, to call down God's favour on someone or consecrate food.^[6][2][7]
5. (Septuagint) Euphemistically, to curse.^[7]

Word family

• εὐλογία (eulogíā)
• εὐλογητός (eulogētós)

Related words

• εὔλογος (eúlogos)
• λόγος (lógos)

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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
6. ^ a b c d e f 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
7. ^ a b c d Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
8. ^ Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
9. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
10. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki