κάμινος

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /ká.miː.nos/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈka.mi.nos/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈka.mi.nos/^[1]

Forms

κάμῑνος (kámīnos) f (genitive καμῑ́νου); second declension^[1] Late κάμινη (papyri, 6th century AD).^[2]

Etymology

It is a technical loanword of unknown origin.^[2][3][1] Beekes notes that the suffix -ῑνος is typical of Pre-Greek, and marks the word with a question mark as possibly Pre-Greek.^[2][1] The comparison with καμάρα (kamára, “vaulted chamber”), made by older scholars and still mentioned by LSJ, has little value; a connection with Old Church Slavonic камꙑ (kamy, “stone”) is possible, but would mean a loan from the north or the east.^[2][3][4]

It was borrowed as Latin camīnus (“furnace, fireplace”), the source of Middle High German kamīn and other European words for a fireplace or chimney.^[2][3] It also passed into Aramaic, and through Aramaic into Arabic.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in the Homeric Epigrams.^[2][4] Herodotus and Aeschylus have it soon after.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Herodotus uses it for kilns in which bricks were fired and for an oven for roasting.^[5][4] Xenophon uses it for smelting furnaces, and the Anacreontea for the forge of Hephaestus.^[5][6][4] Galen uses it for a flue that heats a room.^[4]

In the Septuagint the “furnace of fire” is where the three young men are thrown in Daniel, and in the New Testament it becomes an image of hell.^[6][5] Comic proverbs called a man who ate scalding food “a furnace, not a man”, and a drunkard “one with a furnace in his lungs”.^[4][7] Medieval Greek also used it for a funeral pyre.^[7] It survives as a learned word in Modern Greek, where the everyday form is Modern Greek καμίνι (kamíni); Romanian cămin comes from it.^[8][1]

Timeline

• Homeric Epigrams – the first known use.^[2][4]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus describes brick kilns.^[5][4][9]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon mentions smelting furnaces.^[6][9]
• 1st century AD – the New Testament: the “furnace of fire” as an image of hell.^[6][5]
• 2nd century AD – Galen uses it for a flue heating a room.^[4][9]
• Modern Greek – κάμινος (learned), καμίνι.^[8][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. An oven for roasting.^[5][4]
2. A kiln for firing bricks and pottery.^[5][4]
3. A furnace for smelting or metalwork; the forge of Hephaestus.^[5][4]
4. A flue for heating a room.^[4]
5. (New Testament) The furnace of hell.^[5][6]
6. (Septuagint) An alcove.^[4]

Word family

• καμινεύς (kamineús)
• καμινεύω (kamineúō)
• καμίνιον (kamínion)

Related words

• Latin camīnus
• English chimney

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ a b c d e 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
7. ^ a b c Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge