θέρος

Forms

θέρος (théros) n (genitive θέρους or θέρεος or θέρευς); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *kʷʰéros (“heat; summer”),^[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰéros (“heat, warm weather”), an s-stem noun of the root Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“warm, hot”).^[1][2][3] It is the noun that belongs to the old present θέρομαι (théromai, “to become warm”).^[4][2]

It corresponds exactly to Sanskrit हरस् (háras, “heat”), and to Old Armenian ջեր (ǰer, “warmth”).^[2] Only Greek has the meaning “summer”: Beekes and Chantraine note that for “heat” Greek used other words (θέρμη (thérmē), θάλπος (thálpos)), and the sense “harvest” may come from θερίζω (therízō), “to do the summer work”.^[2][4][5]

The Etymologicum Magnum derives it from θέρω (thérō, “to warm”), which it in turn derives from θέω (théō, “to run”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it means “summer”, as in the Odyssey (7.118) “neither in winter nor in summer” and the Iliad (22.151), with the old dative θέρεϊ.^[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Summer was sometimes set against winter alone, so that it took in spring and autumn as well.^[10] In Thucydides it is the campaigning season.^[7] From summer it came to mean the summer fruits, the harvest or crop (Aristophanes, Demosthenes), a polysemy also recorded in DatSemShift.^[7][10][11] Aristophanes has “to reap another man's harvest” (θέρος ἀλλότριον ἀμᾶν), and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides used the word figuratively for a crop of men, a shorn mane, or the reaping of a crime.^[7][10] The Atticist lexica note that the orators used it for the crops gathered in, and Hesychius glosses it as corn and as the season of reaping.^[12][13]

The New Testament uses it for summer, and the Shepherd of Hermas figuratively for the bliss to come.^[14] Medieval Greek kept it as a learned word.^[15] In Modern Greek the neuter θέρος (théros) is a learned word for summer, while a popular masculine ο θέρος, its gender changed after ο τρύγος “grape harvest”, means the reaping of grain and its season, as in the saying θέρος, τρύγος, πόλεμος, of work that cannot be put off.^[16][17]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for summer.^[7][8]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses the genitive θέρεος, “in summer”.^[7][9][18]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses it for the campaigning season.^[7][18]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the harvest.^[7][10][18]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for summer.^[14]
• 3rd century AD – Papyri use the plural θέρη for crops.^[7]
• Modern Greek – The neuter is a learned word for summer, and a popular masculine means the reaping of grain.^[16][17]

Meanings

Noun

1. Summer, the warm season; in Thucydides, the campaigning season.^[7][10][14]
2. The summer fruits, harvest, crop, and in the plural crops.^[7][10]
3. (figurative) A crop (of men); a shorn mane or beard; the harvest of a deed.^[10]

Word family

• θερινός (therinós)
• θέρειος (théreios)
• θερεία (thereía)
• θερίζω (therízō)
• θερισμός (therismós)
• θεριστής (theristḗs)
• θέρετρον (théretron)

Related words

• θέρομαι (théromai)
• θερμός (thermós)
• θέρμη (thérmē)
• Modern Greek θέρος (théros)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ a b 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
9. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ Zalizniak, Anna A., et al. (2024), Database of Semantic Shifts (DatSemShift), Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, https://datsemshift.ru
12. ^ Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck
13. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
14. ^ 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
15. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
16. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
17. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
18. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge