θήκη

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /tʰɛ̌ː.kɛː/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈθi.ci/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈθi.ci/^[1]

Forms

θήκη (thḗkē) f (genitive θήκης); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put, place”), from the root of that verb, Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, set”).^[2][3][4] It is often compared with Sanskrit धाक (dhāká, “container”), which looks identical except for the gender, but the two may be independent formations.^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Aeschylus' Persians has it in the sense “tomb”, in the call to free “the tombs of the ancestors”.^[5][6] Herodotus uses it both of tombs and of chests for money.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Greek it means a container, such as a chest for valuables, and a grave or coffin, and Thucydides uses the plural of ways of disposing of the dead.^[6][7] In the Gospel of John it is the sheath of a sword.^[8][7]

As the second member of compounds it gave about a hundred words for stores, boxes and furniture where things are kept, such as βιβλιοθήκη (bibliothḗkē) “bookcase, library”, besides διαθήκη (diathḗkē) “will”, συνθήκη (sunthḗkē) “agreement” and ὑποθήκη (hupothḗkē) “pledge”, which belong to the prefixed verbs.^[3][5] The word was borrowed as Latin theca.^[9]

Medieval Greek kept it, and Modern Greek θήκη (thíki) in Modern Greek is a case or cover for an object, such as a case for glasses or a violin.^[10][11] The compounding pattern is still productive in Modern Greek words for cases and storage places.^[5]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it of tombs.^[6][12]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of money-chests and tombs, and Thucydides of modes of burial.^[6][7][12]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it of storage chests in a household.^[7][12]
• 1st century AD – The Gospel of John uses it for a sword's sheath.^[8]
• 2nd century AD – Pollux records it for a sword-sheath.^[6][12]
• Modern Greek – It means a case or cover.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A case, chest or box for storing things, such as money or household goods.^[6][7]
2. A tomb, grave; a coffin; in the plural, burial arrangements or ways of disposing of the dead.^[6][7]
3. A sheath for a sword; a case for a bow.^[6][8]

Word family

• βιβλιοθήκη (bibliothḗkē)
• διαθήκη (diathḗkē)
• ἀποθήκη (apothḗkē)
• ὑποθήκη (hupothḗkē)
• συνθήκη (sunthḗkē)

Related words

• τίθημι (títhēmi)
• Latin theca

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 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
4. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge