Etymologically
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κάμινος

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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)

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