Etymologically
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καρδία

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kar.dí.aː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /karˈði.a/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /karˈði.a/[1]

Forms

κᾰρδῐ́ᾱ (kardíā) f (genitive κᾰρδῐ́ᾱς); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *kərdíyā, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥díyeh₂, from *ḱérd (“heart”).[1] Beekes compares the names of other body parts in ⟨-ία⟩, such as κοιλία (koilía) “belly” and ἀρτηρία (artēría) “windpipe, artery”.[2] The starting point is the old neuter κῆρ (kêr), from *ḱēr(d), with ablaut: the genitive Latin cordis reflects *ḱr̥dés.[2] The i-stem is probably old: it appears in Hittite kardiaš (“of the heart”) beside the nominative kēr, and in Lithuanian širdìs.[2]

Cognate with Sanskrit हृदय (hṛ́daya), Old Armenian սիրտ (sirt), Old Church Slavonic срьдьце (srĭdĭce) and Old English heorte, the source of English heart.[1][3] Epic Greek mostly has the form κραδίη (kradíē), Ionic καρδίη (kardíē);[2] Aeolic κάρζα (kárza) is recorded in the Etymologicum Magnum and Cypriot κορζία (korzía) in Hesychius.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer, mostly as κραδίη, it is the heart that beats in the chest and leaps out of it in panic.[4][2] It is above all the seat of feeling: anger swells in it, and a coward has “the eyes of a dog and the heart of a deer” (κυνὸς ὄμματ’ ἔχων, κραδίην δ’ ἐλάφοιο, Iliad 1.225).[4]

Semantic evolution

Archaic and Classical poetry keeps the heart as the seat of courage, fear, grief, joy and love, from Archilochus and Sappho to tragedy, which always has the form καρδία.[4] It also means inclination or purpose, and the mind.[4] In the Hippocratic writings and Thucydides καρδία is also the opening of the stomach, and Theophrastus uses it for the heart of wood.[2] Compounds with it are frequent, such as θρασυκάρδιος (thrasukárdios) “bold-hearted”, already in the Iliad.[2]

In the period of the Greek Bible the word is rather rare in other writers but common in the Septuagint, which also has the phrase “to speak to the heart”, to speak kindly.[5][4] In the New Testament it is the seat of physical, spiritual and mental life.[5] Medieval Greek pronounced it καρδιά, with the ι turned into a glide to avoid hiatus, and this is Modern Greek καρδιά (kardiá), one of whose senses is a learned calque on French cœur.[6] Cappadocian and Cypriot have their own forms, καργιά and καρκιά.[3]

Timeline

  • Homer – It is the heart, as an organ and as the seat of feeling.[4][2]
  • 7th century BC – Archilochus speaks of being “full of heart”.[4][7]
  • 7th–6th century BC – Sappho uses it of love.[4][7]
  • 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writings and Thucydides use it for the opening of the stomach.[2][7]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it for the heart of wood.[2][7]
  • Koine – In the New Testament it is the seat of the inner life.[5]
  • Medieval Greek – It is pronounced καρδιά.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The heart.[4][2]
  2. The heart as the seat of feeling and passion: anger, fear, courage, grief, joy, love.[4]
  3. Inclination, desire, purpose.[4]
  4. The mind.[4]
  5. (medicine) The cardiac opening of the stomach.[2]
  6. The heart or pith of wood.[2]
  7. (New Testament) The heart as the seat of physical, spiritual and mental life.[5]

Word family

  • περικάρδιος (perikárdios)
  • ἐρυθροκάρδιος (eruthrokárdios)
  • θρασυκάρδιος (thrasukárdios)
  • καρδιακός (kardiakós)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 Heggarty, Paul, et al. (2023), Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR), Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, https://iecor.clld.org
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d 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
  6. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  7. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge