Etymologically
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εὔριπος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ěu̯.riː.pos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈe.βri.pos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈe.vri.pos/[1]

Forms

εὔρῑπος (eúrīpos) m; second declension[2] The Mycenaean place name Mycenaean Greek e-wi-ri-po seems to be the same word.[3][4][5]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek.[3] He rejects the explanation “with a strong current”, from εὖ (eû, “well”) and ῥιπή (rhīpḗ, “rush, force”), even though the strait between Euboea and Boeotia is famous for its strong currents of water and wind.[3] That explanation, first given by Fick, is the one Chantraine and Frisk accept: the word would have been made for this strait and later applied to other straits.[4][6][7]

Forssman derived it from a compound meaning “having broad waters”, with Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep- (“water”),[3][5] but Beekes is not convinced by the sound change this needs, and the meaning does not suit a narrow strait.[3] Frisk rejects a link with Lithuanian siaũras (“narrow”).[6]

The Etymologicum Magnum derives it from ῥιπίζω (rhipízō, “to fan, toss”), or, “by contraries”, from εὐρύς (eurús, “broad”), because the strait is narrow.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Herodotus use it of the strait between Euboea and Boeotia, the Euripus.[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

From the name of that strait it became a word for any strait or narrow sea with a violent ebb and flow, in Xenophon and Aristotle.[2][6] The Euripus, which the Etymologicum Magnum says changes its flow seven times a day, became proverbial for an unstable, changeable person: Aeschines speaks of someone who turned more often than the Euripus, and Aristotle of people who flow back and forth like a Euripus.[2][8]

Later it meant any canal or ditch, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and an inscription from Cyzicus, and in John Lydus the spina, the barrier down the middle of the circus.[2][6] Galen uses it for a ventilator or fan, which Beekes takes to be a different word, formed from ῥιπή in the sense of “blast”.[2][3][4] It was borrowed into Latin euripus,[9] and English has the name Euripus.[7]

Timeline

  • 6th century BC – The Homeric Hymn to Apollo names the strait between Euboea and Boeotia.[2][10]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus names the same strait.[2][11]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for any strait with strong currents.[2][10][11]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle and Aeschines use the Euripus as an image of a changeable person.[2][11]
  • 1st century BC – Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses it for a canal.[2][11]
  • 2nd century AD – Galen uses it for a ventilator.[2][11]
  • 6th century AD – John Lydus uses it for the spina of the circus.[2][11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A strait or narrow sea with violent currents, especially the Euripus between Euboea and Boeotia.[2][3]
  2. (figurative) An unstable, changeable person, likened to the Euripus.[2]
  3. A canal, ditch.[2][6]
  4. The spina of a circus.[2]
  5. A ventilator, fan.[2][3]

Word family

  • εὐριπώδης (euripṓdēs)

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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 g h i 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
  4. ^ a b c 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
  5. ^ a b Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
  6. ^ a b c d e f Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  10. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  11. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge