ζῆτα

Forms

ζῆτᾰ (zêta) n (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

It is a Semitic loanword, the name of the letter, taken with the alphabet:^[2][3][4] the source is the letter borrowed from Phoenician 𐤆 (z), called זַיִן (zayin) in Hebrew.^[1][5][4] The usual view is that the Greek name was reshaped after the names of the letters that follow it, ἦτα (êta) and θῆτα (thêta), and after βῆτα (bêta).^[5][1][4] Rosół, who classes it among the Greek letter names, lists the scholars who hold this view, and others who assume a Phoenician name with a final /t/ meaning “olive tree”.^[4]

Frisk and Beekes, following Lewy, derive it directly from such a form with /t/ in Hebrew and Aramaic, and think the reshaping unnecessary;^[6][2] Driver, as Rosół reports, finds that explanation improbable.^[4] The Byzantine lexicon of Zonaras derived the name of the letter from Zetes, a son of Boreas.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the 5th century BC, in the comic poet Callias and then in Plato's Cratylus, as the name of the letter ζ.^[4][8][5][9]

Semantic evolution

The name was used for the letter itself and, as the letters numbered the books of the Homeric poems, for the sixth book of the Iliad: a papyrus of the 2nd or 3rd century AD refers to that book by it.^[5] Later writers on music used it too.^[9]

In 5th-century BC Attic the letter was pronounced /zd/ (or /dz/), and the name accordingly; after the classical period it became /z/, and after the Hellenistic period the name was pronounced [zíta], as in Modern Greek ζήτα (zíta), a learned continuation of the ancient name.^[10][1] Through Late Latin zeta, the Late Latin form, the name reached English as zeta, recorded from the early 15th century, and Old French gave English the letter name zed.^[11]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – The comic poet Callias uses the letter name.^[4][8]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato discusses the letter in the Cratylus.^[5][9][8]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – A papyrus uses it to name the sixth book of the Iliad.^[5]
• 3rd–4th century AD – Writers on music such as Alypius use it.^[9]
• 12th–13th century – The lexicon of Zonaras derives the name from Zetes, son of Boreas.^[7]
• 15th century – English records zeta as the name of the Greek letter.^[11]
• Modern Greek – The learned ζήτα (zíta) continues it as the name of the letter.^[10][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. The name of the letter ζ, the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet, zeta.^[5][3]
2. The sixth book of the Iliad.^[5]

Related words

• ἦτα (êta)
• θῆτα (thêta)
• βῆτα (bêta)
• Latin zeta
• English zeta
• English zed

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
8. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
9. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας