θάνατος

Forms

θᾰ́νᾰτος (thánatos) m (genitive θᾰνᾰ́του); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek θνῄσκω (thnēískō, “to die”), formed from the verb's root (as in the aorist θανεῖν (thaneîn)) with the suffix found in βίοτος (bíotos, “life”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *-etos.^[1][2][3] Beekes reconstructs this root, which also appears in θνητός (thnētós, “mortal”), as *dʰn̥h₂-.^[4]

The further origin is debated.^[4][5] An old comparison with a Sanskrit aorist meaning “he disappeared, went out” and a participle meaning “dark” led to a root *dʰwenh₂-; on this view the sense “die” began as a euphemism (“go out like a fire”), as Frisk and Chantraine explain.^[4][5][6][7] Beekes finds the comparison uncertain; the LIV instead puts the Greek words under a root *dʰenh₂- (“to set off running, to make off”), with Vedic verbs meaning “to flow” (with a prefix, “to die”) and Tocharian A tsnāntär (“they flow”), which he thinks possible but not wholly convincing.^[4]

Ancient grammarians offered fanciful derivations: Orion took it from τείνω (teínō, “to stretch”), because death stiffens the body, and Philoxenus built it from a verb meaning “to set aside”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is common from the Iliad and the Odyssey on, meaning death, natural or violent;^[2][3] Homer has the phrase θάνατόνδε “to death” and personifies Death as a god.^[2][3][9]

Semantic evolution

Homer and Hesiod already treat Death as a god, and tragedy and comedy keep the figure.^[3][9] In Classical Greek the word covers the moment and manner of dying, the state of being dead, a killing, and in law the death penalty: a δίκη θανάτου was a capital trial.^[3][2] Menander's phrase “to look deaths” meant to look deathly pale.^[3]

In the Septuagint it also means a deadly pestilence, and in the New Testament death is seen not only as the end of physical life but as separation from God, set against eternal life; the phrase “to taste death” means to die.^[10][11] Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word unchanged, and it is still Modern Greek θάνατος (thánatos).^[12][13]

English Thanatos, Freud's “death instinct” (1935), is taken from it.^[14]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for death and personify Death.^[2][3][9]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony presents Death as a god.^[9][3]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use it of the death penalty.^[3][15]
• 4th century BC – The orator Lycurgus calls the destruction of a city its death.^[2][3][15]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament opposes it to life, as spiritual death.^[11]
• 1935 – English borrows Thanatos as a term of Freudian psychology.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. Death, the end of life or the way someone dies, whether natural or violent.^[2][3]
2. The state of being dead.^[3]
3. A killing, murder.^[3]
4. (law) The death penalty; δίκη θανάτου, a capital trial.^[3][2]
5. (personified) Death as a god.^[3]
6. (Septuagint) A deadly pestilence.^[10]
7. (New Testament) Spiritual death, separation from God.^[11]

Word family

• δυσθάνατος (dusthánatos)
• θανάσιμος (thanásimos)
• θανατάω (thanatáō)
• θανατικός (thanatikós)
• θανατόεις (thanatóeis)
• θανατόω (thanatóō)
• θανάτωσις (thanátōsis)
• ἀθάνατος (āthánatos)
• εὐθανασία (euthanasíā)

Related words

• θνῄσκω (thnēískō)
• θνητός (thnētós)
• English Thanatos

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
8. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
9. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
11. ^ a b c 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
12. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge