εὐρύς

Forms

εὐρῠ́ς (eurús) m (feminine εὐρεῖᾰ, neuter εὐρῠ́); first/third declension^[1] Epic accusative masculine εὐρέα beside εὐρύν, used for the metre.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *eurús,^[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₁wr̥Hús (“wide”), from the root *h₁werH-.^[5][6][2] Cognate with Sanskrit उरु (urú, “wide”), Avestan vouru (“wide”), Tocharian A wärts and Tocharian B wartse “broad”; the neuter noun εὖρος (eûros, “breadth”) has a Sanskrit match meaning “breadth”.^[2][5][1]

The first syllable is a problem: from the Indo-European forms Greek would be expected to have a first syllable with /wa/ in the adjective and /we/ in the noun, just as βαρύς (barús) matches the Sanskrit word for “heavy”.^[2][3] Some explain εὐ- by a prothetic vowel from the laryngeal, but Beekes notes that this should rather have given a form with -αρ-.^[2] Others assume an adjective with the full grade /we/, modelled on the comparative (Sanskrit has a full-grade comparative “broader”), whose vowels then changed places.^[2][3] The noun could be explained the same way, unless it was made from the adjective.^[2][3] Beekes therefore marks the reconstruction with a query.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for wide things: the camp of the Achaeans, a hero's shoulders, a ditch, and in fixed phrases the wide sky, the broad earth and the wide sea.^[4][7][8] It was already in names in Mycenaean, such as Mycenaean Greek e-u-ru-da-mo, Εὐρύδαμος (Eurúdamos).^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

The adjective was mainly poetic: Chantraine notes it is uncommon in prose and absent from the papyri.^[3] Beside “wide, broad” it meant “far-reaching”, of fame or hopes, and the neuter was used as an adverb, “widely”.^[7] It formed many compounds, mostly poetic, such as εὐρυάγυια (euruáguia, “with wide streets”) and Zeus' epithet εὐρύοπα (eurúopa), and many personal names, such as Euryalus and Eurycleia.^[3][2] Derivatives are εὐρύνω (eurū́nō, “to widen”), already in the Odyssey, and the rare εὐρύτης (eurútēs, “width”) in the Hippocratic writings.^[2][3]

The Septuagint uses it three times, all in Exodus, in the sense “wide”.^[9] Modern Greek has the learned ευρύς (evrýs), “broad, extensive”, and figuratively “not limited, concerning many people or things”, as of a wide circle of acquaintances.^[10] Triantafyllidis takes this sense as modelled on German weit and the English word broad.^[10][11]

Timeline

• Mycenaean period – The personal name Mycenaean Greek e-u-ru-da-mo contains it.^[5][3]
• 700s BC – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for broad shoulders, the wide sky, earth and sea, and of wide-spreading fame.^[4][7][8]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it in the Theogony and the Works and Days.^[8]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus has the Ionic feminine εὐρέα, and Pindar uses the neuter as an adverb.^[7]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – The Septuagint uses it three times in Exodus.^[9]
• Modern Greek – The learned ευρύς (evrýs) is used for broad and extensive things.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Wide, broad, spacious, especially of the sky, the earth and the sea; of shoulders, broad.^[7][12][4]
2. Far-reaching, far-spread, of fame or hopes.^[7]
3. (neuter as adverb) Widely.^[7]

Word family

• εὖρος (eûros)
• εὐρύνω (eurū́nō)
• εὐρύτης (eurútēs)
• εὐρυάγυια (euruáguia)
• εὐρύοπα (eurúopa)
• εὐρυμέτωπος (eurumétōpos)

Related words

• Sanskrit उरु (urú)

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 i j 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
5. ^ a b c d Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Heggarty, Paul, et al. (2023), Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR), Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, https://iecor.clld.org
7. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
12. ^ Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press