κλεψύδρα

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /klep.sý.draː/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /klepˈsy.ðra/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /klepˈsy.ðra/^[1]

Forms

κλεψῠ́δρᾱ (klepsúdrā) f (genitive κλεψῠ́δρᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a compound from Ancient Greek κλέπτω (kléptō, “to steal”) + ὕδωρ (húdōr, “water”), literally “water thief”.^[1][2] Beekes describes it as a governing compound with the first member κλέψαι (klépsai), the zero grade of the second member as in ἄνυδρος (ánudros, “waterless”), and the feminine ending -α.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first sense is a pipette: Empedocles, in the 5th century BC, describes a small vessel with holes in its base and an air-vent at the top, used to lift small quantities of liquid.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In Athens the word came to mean the water-clock, a vessel with a narrow hole at the bottom through which water ran out slowly, used to time speeches in the law-courts, and Aristophanes and the Aristotelian Constitution of the Athenians describe it.^[4][5][2] It was also used to measure military watches (Aeneas Tacticus) and in astronomy (Proclus).^[4] Aristotle also uses the word for the pipette in his physics.^[4] It was the name of an intermittent spring on the Acropolis at Athens and of another at Ithome.^[4]

Latin borrowed it as clepsydra.^[6] Modern Greek κλεψύδρα (klepsídra) is a learned word for a time-measuring instrument of two vessels joined by a narrow passage, through which water or sand runs, so also an hourglass.^[7]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Empedocles uses it for a pipette.^[4][5]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the water-clock of the law-courts and as the name of a spring on the Acropolis.^[4]
• 4th century BC – Aeneas Tacticus uses a water-clock to time the night watches.^[4]
• 2nd century AD – Pausanias names a spring at Ithome Klepsydra.^[4]
• 5th century AD – Proclus uses it for astronomical measurement.^[4]
• Modern Greek – κλεψύδρα (klepsídra) is a learned word for a water-clock or hourglass.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pipette: a small vessel with holes in the base and an air-vent above, for lifting small amounts of liquid.^[4][5]
2. A water-clock, a vessel from which water ran out slowly through a narrow hole, used to time speeches in the courts and to measure watches.^[4][5]
3. The name of an intermittent spring, on the Acropolis of Athens and at Ithome.^[4]

Related words

• Latin clepsydra
• English clepsydra

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
3. ^ 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
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 e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki