καθίημι

Forms

κᾰθίημῐ (kathíēmi) ^[1] Ionic κατίημι (katíēmi); epic aorist καθέηκα.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek κατα- (kata-) + ἵημι (híēmi, “to send, let go”), “to send down”.^[1][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for letting something down or lowering it: horses let down into a river's eddies in the Iliad, sails lowered in the Odyssey, and wine let down the throat when Priam eats and drinks with Achilles.^[3][2][5]

Semantic evolution

From “let fall, send down” the verb was used of letting the hair hang loose, of driving a weapon down into a body, and in the passive of coming down.^[4][2][1] Classical Attic gave it institutional senses: to send chariots down into the arena, that is, to enter them for a race, as Thucydides says of Alcibiades; to put on a play; and to let exiles come back home.^[2][1] Intransitively it was used of a wind swooping down and of rivers running down.^[2]

In the New Testament it is used of someone let down through the roof tiles, of a man let down through a wall, and of a thing let down from heaven.^[6][7] From the same compound come κάθετος (káthetos), a perpendicular line, and καθετήρ (kathetḗr), something let down or inserted.^[1]

Timeline

• 700s BC – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for lowering horses, sails and wine.^[3][5]
• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it for letting hair fall and for driving a spear through the body.^[4]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses it for entering chariots in a race.^[2]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for allowing exiles to return.^[2]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it intransitively of rivers running down.^[2]
• 1st century AD – The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles use it for letting people and things down.^[6]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it for putting on a dramatic production.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To let fall, send down, lower; to let hair hang down.^[2][3][4]
2. To thrust a weapon down or through.^[4]
3. (passive) To come down.^[1]
4. To send down into the arena, to enter chariots for a race; to produce a play.^[2]
5. To allow exiles to return.^[2]
6. (intransitive) To swoop down, like a wind; of rivers, to run down.^[2]
7. (New Testament) To let someone down, on ropes or over a wall.^[6][7]

Word family

• κάθετος (káthetos)
• καθετήρ (kathetḗr)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
4. ^ a b c d e Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
5. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.