κολωνός

Forms

κολωνός (kolōnós) m (genitive κολωνοῦ); second declension.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is a by-form of κολώνη (kolṓnē, “hill”), and the two point to an old n-stem.^[3][4] In Beekes's view the stem is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *kolH-n- (“rise, height”), from a primary verb meaning “to rise up”; the long vowel of the suffix probably arose when the vowel of the nominative spread to the other cases.^[3]

Cognate with Lithuanian kálnas (“mountain”), Latin collis (“hill”) and Old English hyll, the source of English hill.^[3][4][5] The root is also seen in the Latin verbs in -cellō (“to rise, stand out”), and Lithuanian kélti (“to lift”) shows that it ended in a laryngeal.^[3][4] Pokorny adds κολοφών (kolophṓn, “summit”).^[5]

The Etymologicum Magnum explains it as any rising of the ground.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in a fragment of Hesiod and in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, meaning a hill.^[1][2][3]

Semantic evolution

Herodotus uses it both of a hill and of a heap or mound of stones, and Xenophon of a cairn.^[1][2] Apollonius Rhodius uses it of a hilltop or peak.^[1][2][7] The older and commoner word was the feminine κολώνη (kolṓnē), found from the Iliad.^[3][4] The Cyranides use the word for a kind of stone.^[8]

As a place name it was the Attic deme of Colonus, sacred to the hero Colonus the horseman and the setting of Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.^[1][7] Athens also had a “market Colonus”, a mound in the agora where labourers were hired, as Pherecrates and the lexica record.^[1][6][7] The word survives in Modern Greek κολωνός (kolonós), a hill or its top, and in the name of the Athenian district.^[7]

Timeline

• Before the 6th century BC – A fragment of Hesiod uses it of a hill, as does the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.^[1][9]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of hills and of a heap of stones.^[1][2]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles sets Oedipus at Colonus in the Attic deme of the name, and Pherecrates mentions the market mound.^[1]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it of a heap of stones.^[1][2]
• 3rd century BC – Apollonius Rhodius uses it of a hilltop.^[1]
• 1st–2nd century AD – The Cyranides use it for a kind of stone.^[8][9]
• Modern Greek – It survives for a hill or hilltop and as the name of the Athenian district.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hill; a hilltop, a peak.^[1][2]
2. A heap or mound of stones or earth.^[1][2]
3. A kind of stone.^[8]

Related words

• κολώνη (kolṓnē)
• κολοφών (kolophṓn)
• Latin collis
• English hill

Usage notes

With a capital, Κολωνός was the deme of Colonus in Attica; the Κολωνὸς ἀγοραῖος was a mound in the Athenian agora where hired labourers gathered.^[1][6] The Etymologicum Magnum distinguishes the two hills at Athens, the one of the horsemen and the one of the market.^[6]

References

1. ^ 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
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
5. ^ a b Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ a b c d Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
8. ^ a b c Charbonnet, André (2025), Chæréphon, v4.7: supplement to Bailly from papyri, inscriptions and recent lexica
9. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge