Etymologically
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κέλευθος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ké.leu̯.tʰos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈce.leɸ.θos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈce.lef.θos/[1]

Forms

κέλευθος (kéleuthos) f (genitive κελεύθου); second declension[1] Poetic heteroclite plural κέλευθα; also Arcadian, in an inscription from Tegea.[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is unknown.[3] The usual comparison is with κελεύω (keleúō, “to urge”) and κέλομαι (kélomai), from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to drive”), but the suffix -θ- has no clear model in Greek.[3][4][1] So Brugmann took it as a blend of κελεύω (keleúō) with the stem of ἐλεύσομαι (eleúsomai), and others made similar attempts, but Chantraine calls them complicated and unlikely.[4][5] Specht compared the ⟨-th-⟩ of Sanskrit पन्थाः (pánthāḥ, “road”) and Lithuanian keliū́ta (“road”), but the Lithuanian word is built on kẽlias (“road”) and has no direct connection with it.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for a road or path, for the “wet ways” of the sea, and for the journey or voyage itself.[2][6][7]

Semantic evolution

It was a poetic word, though an Arcadian inscription from Tegea uses it too.[2][3] The literal sense of a road was not common; more often it was a course or route, the paths of the stars and the sun, a ship's wake, or the domain of the gods.[2][6] Pindar and Bacchylides made it the path of song and action, and Parmenides and Bacchylides speak of the paths of Persuasion and of Justice.[2][6]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it of roads, sea paths and journeys.[2][7]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it of the path of song and achievement.[2][6][8]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Parmenides speaks of the path of Persuasion.[2][8]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it of the circling paths of the Bear.[2][8]
  • 4th century BC – An Arcadian inscription from Tegea uses it.[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A road, path, track; in the plural, the paths of the sea.[2][6]
  2. A journey, voyage; a route or course, of the sun, the stars or a river.[2][6]
  3. (figurative) The path of song, of action or of justice.[2][6]
  • κελεύω (keleúō)

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 k l m 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 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 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. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  8. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge