κοντός

Forms

κοντός (kontós) m (genitive κοντοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is an o-grade noun from Ancient Greek κεντέω (kentéō, “to prick, goad”), so originally “the pricker”, a staff for driving cattle.^[2][3][1] Frisk notes that the Old High German hantag (“pointed”), from Proto-Germanic *handa-, matches κοντός formally.^[2]

Ancient grammarians saw the same link: Philoxenus derived κοντός from that verb, comparing τρέφω (tréphō) beside τροφός (trophós).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the Odyssey, which speaks of a very long pole taken in the hands.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

From Herodotus and Thucydides on it is the punting-pole used to manoeuvre boats and ships, and Euripides uses it too.^[7][8] In later prose it also meant a long spear or pike, the weapon of Parthian horsemen in Plutarch, and Galen uses it of crutches; a 3rd-century BC papyrus has it for a goad.^[8][7] The Septuagint uses it for the shaft of a spear.^[9]

It was borrowed into Latin as contus, the pole or pike, which also lies behind Latin percontor.^[3][10] Diminutives such as κοντάριον (kontárion) and κοντάκιον (kontákion) were formed from it.^[3][11] Medieval Greek kept the noun, and in Modern Greek κοντός (kontós) is the learned word for the pole of the pole vault, modelled on German Stabhochsprung.^[12][13]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey uses it for a long pole.^[5][7]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use it for the poles of boats and ships.^[7][14]
• 3rd century BC – A papyrus of the Zenon archive uses it for a goad.^[7]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it for the long spear of the Parthians.^[8][14]
• 2nd century AD – Lucian uses it for a pike, and Galen for crutches.^[7][14]
• Modern Greek – The learned noun names the pole of the pole vault.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pole, especially a punting-pole or boat-hook for moving a ship.^[7][8]
2. A long spear or pike.^[7][8][9]
3. (in the plural) Crutches.^[7]
4. A goad for driving animals.^[7]

Word family

• κόνταξ (kóntax)
• κονταριοθήκη (kontariothḗkē)
• κοντάριον (kontárion)
• κονταφόρος (kontaphóros)
• κοντοφόρος (kontophóros)
• κόντιλος (kóntilos)

Related words

• κεντέω (kentéō)
• κέντρον (kéntron)
• Latin contus

Usage notes

LSJ lists a separate late adjective κοντός “short”, also written κονδός (kondós), found in Adamantius (4th century AD) and the Hippiatrica.^[7][14] Beekes and Frisk explain it as a reanalysis of compounds such as κοντοβόλος (kontobólos) and κοντομάχος (kontomákhos), where κοντο- was taken to mean “short”, but Chantraine calls the explanation surprising but finds no other, and suggests military vocabulary as its setting.^[3][2][11] The adjective survives as Modern Greek κοντός (kontós, “short”), which Triantafyllidis and Babiniotis trace back to the Hellenistic use of the noun.^[13][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
5. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ a b 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
12. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge