Etymologically
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κλάδος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /klá.dos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈkla.ðos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈkla.ðos/[1]

Forms

κλᾰ́δος (kládos) m (genitive κλᾰ́δου); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is apparently inherited from Proto-Hellenic *klə́dos, from Proto-Indo-European *kl̥d-o-s (“piece of wood”), which has traditionally been linked with *kelh₂- (“to break”).[1] Beekes doubts that link, since that root (see Ancient Greek κλάω (kláō)) cannot explain the Greek form, which needs a root *kld-.[2] A connection with the Germanic word for “wood”, Old Norse holt and Old English holt, and with the Slavic group of Old Church Slavonic клада (klada) and Russian колода (kolóda, “log, block of wood”), suggests itself, since all these can come from *kl̥do-.[2][1] But Beekes thinks the agreement may be accidental: κλάδος can also be connected within Greek with Ancient Greek κραδάω (kradáō), which points to an interchange of /r/ and /l/ and so to a substrate origin.[2]

Beekes keeps Latin clādēs (“destruction”) apart, since it requires a different formation.[2] Babiniotis, by contrast, compares the Latin word, the Slavic and the Germanic forms together.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is a fragment of Ibycus in the 6th century BC, where a warrior is called a “scion” of Enyalios.[4][3] The plain sense, a leafy branch of a tree, is found in Aeschylus, Herodotus and the tragedians, above all of the olive branches that suppliants carried.[5][4][6]

Semantic evolution

In classical Greek κλάδος was the branch or shoot of a tree, and in particular the bough cut from it: the olive branch held by suppliants and the laurel branches used in temples.[5][4] Botanical writers made it more exact: Theophrastus distinguishes the twig from the larger bough, ἀκρεμών (akremṓn).[5] It was also used figuratively, of the two “arms” growing from a creature's back in Empedocles, of a javelin in Bacchylides, and of the branches of a blood vessel in Galen.[5][4] In the papyri of the 3rd century AD it also means a plank.[5]

In the New Testament the branches are those of trees, and Paul speaks figuratively of the root and the branches of the olive tree.[7]

Medieval Greek kept the word, and Modern Greek has it as a learned word, Modern Greek κλάδος (kládos), for a branch and, after French branche and rameau, for a branch of a larger whole, such as a field of science or a family of languages.[8][9] From the same Greek word English formed clade in 1957 for a group of organisms descended from a common ancestor.[10]

Timeline

  • 6th century BC – Ibycus calls a warrior a scion of Enyalios.[4][3][11]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it of the olive branch carried by suppliants.[5][6][11]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of the branches of the olive tree.[5][7][11]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it of the shoot of a tree, and Theophrastus of the twig as opposed to the bough.[5][11]
  • 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it of the branches of trees and of the olive tree in Paul's image.[7]
  • 2nd century AD – Galen uses it of a branch of a blood vessel.[5][11]
  • 3rd century AD – Oxyrhynchus papyri use it for a plank.[5]
  • 1957 – English forms clade from the Greek word.[10]
  • Modern Greek – The learned word means a branch and, after French, a branch of a whole.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A leafy branch or shoot of a tree; a twig.[5][4]
  2. A branch cut from a tree, such as the olive branch of a suppliant or the laurel branch used in temples.[5][4]
  3. (figurative) A scion, offspring.[4]
  4. (figurative) Something branching off: the arms of a body, the branch of a blood vessel.[5][4]
  5. (papyri) A plank.[5]

Word family

  • κλάδινος (kládinos)
  • κλάδιον (kládion)
  • κλαδίσκος (kladískos)
  • κλαδοειδής (kladoeidḗs)
  • κλαδώδης (kladṓdēs)
  • κλαδών (kladṓn)
  • κλάω (kláō)
  • κλῶναξ (klônax)
  • English clade

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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 Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge