κερασός

Forms

κερᾰσός (kerasós) m (genitive κερᾰσοῦ); second declension^[1] Usually accented κέρασος (kérasos); the oxytone κερασός is given by Herodian.^[2][3][4] A Mycenaean place name Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-so has been compared.^[2]

Etymology

Beekes and Frisk take it as a loanword from Asia Minor, of Anatolian or Pre-Greek origin: the cultivated sweet cherry came from the Pontus, where the town Κερασοῦς (Kerasoûs) was “rich in cherries”.^[2][3] The intervocalic ⟨σ⟩ points to an Anatolian or Pre-Greek word, and the ending is that of other foreign words such as θίασος (thíasos) and κάρπασος (kárpasos).^[2][3] Boisacq hesitantly thought it Thraco-Phrygian, which Kretschmer doubted.^[3]

Akkadian karšu has been compared,^[5][2] but Rosół and Blažek reject this, and Blažek looks instead for a Semitic source among the words for the pear tree.^[1]

From the Greek word and its derivatives come names of the cherry in Asian languages such as Armenian and Kurdish, and Latin cerasus and cerasium, whence French cerise and Old High German chirsa, modern Kirsche.^[2][3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in a fragment of Xenophanes, of the 6th–5th century BC, and Theophrastus describes the tree in his Enquiry into Plants (3.13.1).^[5][2][7] It is the wild sweet cherry or bird cherry, Prunus avium.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Later Greek formed κεράσιον (kerásion) for the fruit and κερασία (kerasía) for the tree; a paint was named after an adjective meaning “cherry-coloured”.^[2] Hesychius describes a tree that grows twisted, whose bark is made into cord for binding.^[8]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept κέρασος (kérasos) and the fruit κεράσι (kerási), which is still in use.^[9] The cherry is now Modern Greek κεράσι (kerási), from medieval κεράσιν (kerásin), and the tree is κερασιά (kerasiá), from the Hellenistic name of the tree with the two vowels contracted.^[10]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Xenophanes mentions the cherry tree.^[5][2][7]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes the bird cherry.^[5][2][7]
• Hellenistic period – κεράσιον (kerásion) appears for the fruit.^[2]
• 10th century AD – The Geoponica use κερασία (kerasía) for the tree.^[2][7]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts have κέρασος (kérasos) and κεράσι (kerási).^[9]
• Modern Greek – The fruit is κεράσι (kerási) and the tree κερασιά (kerasiá).^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The cherry tree, the wild sweet cherry or bird cherry (Prunus avium).^[5][2][4]

Word family

• κεράσιον (kerásion)
• κερασία (kerasía)
• Κερασοῦς (Kerasoûs)

Related words

• Latin cerasus
• English cherry

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b Woordenboek Grieks/Nederlands (2012–), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, https://woordenboekgrieks.nl
5. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
8. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
9. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki