Etymologically
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κάμνω

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kám.nɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈkam.no/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈkam.no/[1]

Forms

κᾰ́μνω (kámnō) [1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ḱemh₂- (“to exert oneself, get tired”).[2][3][1] The thematic nasal present κάμνω is a Greek innovation beside an athematic nasal present in Sanskrit, from the verb Sanskrit शम् (śam, “to toil”).[2][4] The thematic aorist ἔκαμον (ékamon) has an exact Sanskrit counterpart, both from the zero grade *ḱm̥h₂-e/o-, and the zero grade κμη- (kmē-) of the perfect κέκμηκα (kékmēka) corresponds to that of the Sanskrit participle.[2] The noun κάματος (kámatos) “toil” is a different formation from the same root.[2][4]

Chantraine holds that the root is surely attested only in Sanskrit and Greek,[4] and Beekes adds that some Celtic nouns, such as Old Irish cuma (“trouble”), may belong here.[4][2] Within Greek, Chantraine and Beekes also connect κομέω (koméō) “to take care of” and κομίζω (komízō).[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on, both transitively, of making something by labour (Hephaestus “toiled” at a sceptre, smiths wrought a belt), and intransitively, of toiling and of growing weary, often with a participle: to tire of fighting or of rowing.[5][6]

Semantic evolution

From weariness the verb passed to being sick: in Herodotus, Sophocles, Thucydides and the Attic orators it means to be ill, and its aorist to fall ill.[6][5] In Homer the aorist participle already names the dead, “those who have toiled”, and in Attic the perfect participle with the article means the dead.[2][6] In the tragedians it is used of persons, armies and ships in distress, and of things that fail or flag.[6]

In the New Testament ὁ κάμνων is the sick man (James 5:15), and later Greek also used it for dying.[7] Medieval Greek simplified the cluster /mn/ to /n/ and made it Byzantine Greek κάνω (káno), which became the everyday verb for “to do, make”.[8][9][10] The meanings other than “to make, work” are medieval.[9]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it for making things by labour and for growing weary.[5][6][11]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus, Sophocles and Thucydides use it for being ill.[6][5]
  • 5th century BC – Thucydides uses the perfect participle with the article for the dead.[6]
  • 1st century AD – The Epistle of James uses the participle for the sick.[7]
  • Middle Ages – It appears as Byzantine Greek κάνω (káno), “to make, do”.[8]
  • Modern Greek – κάνω (káno) is the general verb for making and doing.[9][10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To toil, labour, exert oneself.[6][5]
  2. (transitive) To make or build with labour: armour, ships, clothes, a city.[6][5]
  3. (middle) To win by toil; to till and furnish land.[5][6]
  4. To grow weary, be tired, often with a participle (to tire of doing something); in negative phrases, never to tire of something.[6][5]
  5. To be sick or ill; in the aorist, to fall ill.[6][7]
  6. To be in trouble or distress; of things, to fail or flag.[6]
  7. (participle) Of the dead: Homeric οἱ καμόντες, Attic οἱ κεκμηκότες.[2][6]

Word family

  • ἀκάμας (akámas)
  • ἀκμής (akmḗs)
  • κάματος (kámatos)
  • κμητός (kmētós)
  • κομέω (koméō)
  • κομιδή (komidḗ)
  • κομίζω (komízō)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
  4. ^ a b c d e 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  9. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  10. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  11. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux