κάρπασος

Forms

κάρπᾰσος (kárpasos) f (genitive καρπᾰ́σου); second declension^[1] Also κάλπασος (kálpasos) in papyri, and a neuter plural κάρπασα (kárpasa).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is certainly a loanword.^[5] It is usually taken as an Indic word, borrowed from Sanskrit कर्पास (karpā́sa, “cotton bush”),^[3][6][7][8] but Beekes, Frisk and Chantraine point out that the history of their relation is unknown.^[3][6][5] Wiktionary derives it directly from Biblical Hebrew כַּרְפַּס (karpás, “a costly cotton fabric”), itself ultimately from the Sanskrit word, and Lust calls the derived adjective a Persian loanword, through Hebrew.^[1][9] The New Pauly calls the word Phoenician, or Indian before that.^[10]

Porzig sought the source in a Mediterranean or Anatolian language instead, which Mayrhofer rejected.^[3][6] Its ending is that of other foreign words such as θίασος (thíasos) and κερασός (kerasós).^[3][6]

Latin carbasus (“fine linen”) was borrowed from it, directly or through another language, and carbasinus from its adjective.^[3][7][11] It has no connection with the plant name κάρπασον (kárpason).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the 1st century BC, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2.68), for a fine kind of flax and the gauze-like cloth made from it.^[2][3][12]

Semantic evolution

A scholiast on Aristophanes' Lysistrata also uses it of flax, but in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea it plainly means cotton.^[2][5][3] Cotton was an Eastern product, which the Greeks first came to know well through Alexander's expedition; the Phoenicians brought it to Spain, and Pliny thought it grew near Tarraco.^[8][10]

In an epigram of Antiphilus the plural κάρπασα (kárpasa) plays on two meanings, sails and clothes.^[2][3] The adjective καρπάσινος (karpásinos) “made of karpasos” appears in the Septuagint (Esther 1:6) and in Strabo, papyri of the 3rd century AD speak of a Spanish flax called καρπάσιον (karpásion), and Pausanias mentions a Carpasian flax from Cyprus.^[3][9][5] In the magical papyri the variant κάλπασος (kálpasos) is a sheet of linen used as writing material.^[4]

Timeline

• 1st century BC – Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses it for a fine flax or the cloth made of it.^[2][3][13]
• 1st century AD – An epigram of Antiphilus uses the plural for sails and clothes at once.^[2][3][13]
• 2nd century AD – Pausanias mentions Carpasian flax from Cyprus.^[3][13]
• 3rd century AD – Papyri record καρπάσιον (karpásion), a flax from Spain.^[3][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fine flax (Linum usitatissimum or perhaps Linum angustifolium), and fine linen or gauze made from it.^[2][3][12]
2. Cotton.^[2][3][14]
3. In the plural, linen sails, or linen clothes.^[2][3]

Word family

• καρπάσινος (karpásinos)
• καρπάσιον (karpásion)
• ψευδοκάρπασος (pseudokárpasos)

Related words

• Latin carbasus

Usage notes

The neuter κάρπασον (kárpason), a name of white hellebore with a poisonous juice, is an unrelated plant name.^[2][3][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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. ^ a b Muñoz Delgado, Luis (2001), Léxico de magia y religión en los papiros mágicos griegos, Madrid: CSIC
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
8. ^ a b Smith, William; Wayte, William; Marindin, G. E., eds. (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., London: John Murray
9. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ a b Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
12. ^ a b Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
14. ^ Charbonnet, André (2025), Chæréphon, v4.7: supplement to Bailly from papyri, inscriptions and recent lexica
15. ^ Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg