Etymologically
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κνήμη

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /knɛ̌ː.mɛː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈkni.mi/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈkni.mi/[1]

Forms

κνήμη (knḗmē) f (genitive κνήμης); first declension[1] Doric κνᾱ́μᾱ.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *kónh₂m (“leg”), from a paradigm with the oblique stem *knh₂m-, which gave Doric κνάμα (knā́mā).[2][1] Cognate with Old Irish cnáim (“bone”) and, with another grade, Old English hamm (“ham”), Old High German hamma and Old Norse hǫm.[2][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for the lower leg, between knee and ankle, around which warriors fastened their greaves (κνημίς (knēmī́s)).[4][2]

Semantic evolution

It is the ordinary word for the shin from Homer on, also of a horse's leg in Xenophon.[5][3] Theocritus quotes the proverb “the shin is farther than the knee”, said of the closer bond of kin.[3] In anatomy (Galen, Rufus) it is the tibia, in Theophrastus the stem of a plant between two joints, and in Pollux and Eustathius the spoke of a wheel.[2][3]

Medieval Greek kept the word, and Modern Greek κνήμη (kními) is a learned continuation of it in Modern Greek.[6][7]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it for the lower leg.[4][8]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for a horse's leg.[3][5]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it for the part of a stem between two joints.[3][2]
  • 2nd century AD – Galen uses it for the tibia.[3][2]
  • Modern Greek – κνήμη (kními) is a learned word for the shin.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The part of the leg between knee and ankle, the shin, shank; also of a horse.[3][5]
  2. (anatomy) The tibia.[3]
  3. (botany) The stem between two joints.[3][2]
  4. The spoke of a wheel.[3][2]

Word family

  • ὀκτάκνημος (oktáknēmos)
  • κνημίς (knēmī́s)

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 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 f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  5. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  6. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  7. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux