θεία

Forms

θείᾱ (theíā) f (genitive θείᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a late feminine from Ancient Greek θεῖος² (theîos, “uncle”), made to replace the older word for an aunt, τηθίς (tēthís).^[2][3][4][5] The masculine is a familiar word, not one of the old inherited kinship terms: Beekes takes it as onomatopoeic, a nursery word *θη (*thē) with a suffix, and Chantraine links it with the reduplicated τήθη (tḗthē, “grandmother”).^[3][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus of the 1st century AD, for a father's or mother's sister.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Purists preferred the old word: Helladius, quoted by Photius, says that τηθίς is better.^[7] The grammarian Ammonius already treats θεία in his book of synonym distinctions.^[2] The pair θεῖος and θεία lives on in Modern Greek,^[5][8] where θεία (theía) is an aunt, a parent's cousin and, as a form of address, any older woman.^[9] The masculine was borrowed as Late Latin thius, the source of Italian zio.^[5][3]

Timeline

• 1st century AD – A papyrus from Oxyrhynchus uses it for an aunt.^[2]
• 1st–2nd century AD – The grammarian Ammonius discusses it among words of similar meaning.^[2][10]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular Greek keeps θεία (theía) for an aunt.^[11]
• Modern Greek – θεία (theía) means an aunt, and also an older woman addressed familiarly.^[9][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An aunt, the sister of one's father or mother.^[2][1][7]

Related words

• θεῖος² (theîos)
• τηθίς (tēthís)
• τήθη (tḗthē)
• πρόθειος (prótheios)
• Italian zio

Usage notes

The same spelling is also the feminine of the adjective θεῖος¹ (theîos, “divine”), as in θεία λατρεία, “divine worship”, which Zonaras glosses; that adjective comes from θεός (theós), while the kinship word has a separate source.^[12][3][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d 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
6. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
7. ^ a b Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
8. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
9. ^ a b Πολυλεξικό, in the encyclopedia Επιστήμη και Ζωή, Athens
10. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
11. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
13. ^ Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.