κάδος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /ká.dos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈka.ðos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈka.ðos/^[1]

Forms

κᾰ́δος (kádos) m (genitive κᾰ́δου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is generally taken to be a Semitic loanword,^[2][3][4] probably borrowed from Phoenician 𐤊𐤃 (kd, “jar”), a form Chantraine assumes for Phoenician.^[3][4] The same word is Biblical Hebrew כַּד (kad, “bucket, large jar”), Ugaritic 𐎋𐎄 (kd, “jar, liquid measure”) and Aramaic 𐡊𐡃 (kd).^[4][1] Rosół lists it among the accepted Semitic loanwords in Greek.^[4] Furnée instead compared ἄδδιξ (áddix), with an alternation between /k/ and no consonant, and took both words as Pre-Greek, a possibility Beekes leaves open.^[2]

Greek passed the word on: Latin cadus was borrowed from it, and Arabic took its word for a jar from it too.^[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Archilochus, in the 7th century BC, of a jar for wine.^[6][7] A Cypriot syllabic inscription of the 7th or 6th century BC records it as a wine vessel, and Cypriot used it also as a measure.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

In Ionic and Attic it was the ordinary word for a large jar for water or wine and for the bucket let down into a well, and Aristophanes also uses it of the urn into which votes were cast.^[8][6] Its diminutive καδίσκος (kadískos) became the usual name of the voting urn.^[3] As a liquid measure it was equal to an amphora, and later to half of one.^[6] The Septuagint uses it as a measure of oil, and some manuscripts of Luke have it in place of βάτος (bátos), a liquid measure.^[6][9]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word.^[10] In Modern Greek κάδος (kádos) is a large container of wood or metal, such as a milk churn or a rubbish bin, and also the drum of a washing machine.^[11] Triantafyllidis marks it as probably a learned revival.^[11]

Timeline

• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses it for a wine jar.^[6][7]
• 7th–6th century BC – A Cypriot syllabic inscription names a wine vessel with it.^[4][3]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a jar.^[6][12]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for a well bucket and for a voting urn.^[8]
• 2nd century AD – A papyrus names a bucket for drawing water with it.^[6]
• Modern Greek – κάδος (kádos) means a large container, such as a rubbish bin.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A jar or urn, especially for water or wine.^[6][8]
2. A bucket for drawing water from a well.^[8][6]
3. A voting urn.^[8]
4. A liquid measure, equal to an ἀμφορεύς (amphoreús), later to half of one.^[6]

Related words

• Latin cadus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 d e f 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. ^ a b c d e f Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
5. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux