Etymologically
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κέρδος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kér.dos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈcer.ðos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈcer.ðos/[1]

Forms

κέρδος (kérdos) n (genitive κέρδους); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerd- (“craft, cunning”), a root otherwise found only in Celtic.[2][1] The cognates are Old Irish cerd (“craft, handiwork; smith, potter, poet”), from *ḱerd-h₂-, and Welsh cerdd (“song”).[2][3] Frisk calls these the only usable comparison outside Greek.[3] Beekes doubts the Hesychius gloss κήρτεα (kḗrtea) "gains", and accepts Schmitt's link with the gloss κορδύς (kordús) "crafty".[2] Chantraine notes that the word may already be attested in Mycenaean.[4]

Byzantine etymologists derived it from χείρ (kheír, “hand”), as what is put into the hand, or from κέαρ (kéar, “heart”) and a verb of pleasing, as what gladdens the soul.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on.[2][6] In the Iliad a warrior considers how some advantage may be gained, and the plural means wiles and cunning arts.[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The Homeric plural, "wiles", and the sense “good counsel” faded, and after Homer the word meant gain, profit and reward, and also the desire for gain: in Sophocles' Antigone profit is said to have often destroyed men.[8][7] The sense of a benefit or advantage is as old as Homer and Hesiod.[8] Derived words keep the old idea of cunning: κερδαλέος (kerdaléos) is both "profitable" and "crafty", and κερδώ (kerdṓ), "the crafty one", names the fox.[3][4]

In the New Testament the Letter to the Philippians says that to die is gain, and the word is absent from the Septuagint.[9] The personal name Κέρδων (Kérdōn) became the Latin common noun cerdō, a low tradesman.[3][10] Medieval Greek kept the word unchanged, and it survives as Modern Greek κέρδος (kérdos), the material gain from an activity or trade.[11][12]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for advantage, and the plural for wiles.[7][8]
  • 7th–5th centuries BC – Theognis, Archilochus and Pindar use it for profit and for the desire of gain.[8][7][13]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles and Herodotus use it of greed and of what one counts as an advantage.[7][13]
  • 1st century AD – The Letter to the Philippians says that to die is gain.[9]
  • Modern Greek – It still means profit.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (plural, Homer) Wiles, cunning arts; good counsel.[7][8][2]
  2. Gain, profit, reward.[7][8]
  3. Advantage, benefit.[8][9]
  4. Desire of gain, greed.[7][8]

Word family

  • κερδαίνω (kerdaínō)
  • κερδαλέος (kerdaléos)
  • κερδίων (kerdíōn)
  • κέρδιστος (kérdistos)
  • κερδώ (kerdṓ)
  • αἰσχροκερδής (aiskhrokerdḗs)
  • φιλοκερδής (philokerdḗs)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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 d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  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. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  11. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  13. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge