κίστη

Forms

κῐ́στη (kístē) f (genitive κῐ́στης); first declension^[1] Doric κίστα (kísta).^[2] Callimachus has the spelling κείστη.^[3]

Etymology

Beekes compares Middle Irish cess (“basket, wickerwork causeway, beehive”) and Old Welsh cest (“basket”), which point to a form *kisteh₂-; if they belong together, the most likely explanation is a European loanword.^[4][1] Frisk gives the same comparison, the word then meaning originally a woven container, and lists other proposals (a link with κεῖμαι (keîmai, “to lie”), with Latin cūra, or with Lithuanian kìšti (“to stick in”)); Chantraine calls them risky and thinks it may be a borrowing.^[5][6] Wiktionary mentions Bernal's proposal of an Egyptian source, which has formal problems.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Odyssey it is a basket or hamper for food.^[3][2][7]

Semantic evolution

In Attic it is a basket or hamper, for example for provisions in Aristophanes, and also a writing case.^[3][2] Theophrastus mentions baskets made of bark, and in Theocritus and Plutarch it is the basket carried in religious processions.^[3][2] Ammonius distinguishes it from the κιβωτός (kibōtós, “chest”).^[3]

It was borrowed as Latin cista, from which come most of the European words, among them Irish ciste and Old High German kista.^[4][8] English cist, from Latin, is a sepulchral chest in British archaeology (1804) and the basket for sacred objects in Greek processions (1847).^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey uses it for a basket of food.^[3][7]
• 5th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for a hamper and a writing case.^[3][2]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes baskets of bark.^[3]
• 1804 – English cist is recorded in archaeology.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A basket, hamper, especially for food.^[3][2]
2. A basket carried in religious processions.^[2]
3. A writing case or desk.^[3]
4. A voting urn.^[3]

Word family

• κιστίς (kistís)
• κιστοφόρος (kistophóros)

Related words

• Latin cista
• English cist

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b 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
5. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com