Etymologically
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καταρράκτης

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ka.tar̥.r̥ǎːk.tɛːs/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ka.tarˈrak.tis/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ka.tarˈrak.tis/[1]

Forms

κᾰταρρᾱ́κτης (katarrhā́ktēs) m (genitive κᾰταρρᾱ́κτου); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is an agent noun in -της (-tēs) from Ancient Greek καταρράσσω (katarrhássō, “to dash down”),[2][3][1] a compound of κατά (katá, “down”) and ῥάσσω (rhā́ssō, “to strike, dash”).[1][2] The word thus first meant “dashing down, swooping”.[4][5] The Ionic form was καταρρήκτης (katarrhḗktēs), and a spelling καταράκτης (kataráktēs), connected with καταράσσω (katarássō), is also found.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus names a river in Phrygia Καταρρήκτης, the “cataract” river.[4] In Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus the word is an adjective, “sheer”, of a road, and Aristophanes uses it of a sea-bird.[4][6]

Semantic evolution

From the idea of something rushing or falling down came its later senses: a waterfall, above all the cataracts of the Nile in Diodorus and Strabo; a portcullis that dropped to close a city gate, in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Plutarch; a boarding bridge let down onto an enemy ship, in Appian; and a sluice in Heliodorus.[4][7] The diving sea-bird was named, LSJ suggests, from its swoop on its prey; the Septuagint uses the word for an unclean bird, probably the cormorant.[4][6][8] In the Flood story of the Septuagint the “cataracts of heaven” open to let the rain fall.[4][8]

Latin borrowed the word as Latin cataracta.[1][7] Modern Greek has it as καταρράκτης (katarráktis), with a popular form καταρράχτης (katarráchtis), for a waterfall and figuratively a torrent; as a medical term for a clouding of the lens of the eye it was taken back from French cataracte, which goes back through the Latin word to the Hellenistic sense “barrier”.[9][5]

Timeline

  • 5th century BC – Herodotus records the river name Καταρρήκτης in Phrygia.[4][10]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it as an adjective, “sheer”, of a road.[4][6]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes names a sea-bird so, and Aristotle describes the bird.[4][6]
  • 3rd century BC – The Septuagint speaks of the cataracts of heaven and lists the bird among unclean animals.[8][4]
  • 1st century BC – Diodorus Siculus uses it of the cataracts of the Nile, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus of a portcullis.[4][10]
  • 2nd century AD – Appian uses it of a boarding bridge.[4][10]
  • Modern Greek – It means a waterfall and, after French, the eye disease cataract.[9][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (as an adjective) Rushing down; sheer, precipitous.[4][6]
  2. A waterfall, a cataract, especially of the Nile.[4][8]
  3. A portcullis.[4][6]
  4. A trap-door or floodgate; the “cataracts of heaven” that let the rain through.[4]
  5. A movable bridge let down for boarding ships or for attacking elephants.[4]
  6. A sluice.[4]
  7. A diving sea-bird, perhaps a tern; in the Septuagint probably the cormorant.[6][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  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 Smith, William; Wayte, William; Marindin, G. E., eds. (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., London: John Murray
  8. ^ a b c d Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
  9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  10. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge