κρίνον

Forms

κρῐ́νον (krínon) n (genitive κρῐ́νου); second declension^[1] Heteroclite plural κρίνεα (krínea) (Herodotus), dative κρίνεσι (krínesi) (Aristophanes), also κρίνα (krína) (Theocritus, New Testament).^[2][3]

Etymology

Beekes, Chantraine and Frisk treat it as a borrowed word of unknown origin.^[4][5][6] Wiktionary assumes a foreign or substrate source.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus is the first to use it, both for the lily and, in his account of Egypt, for the Egyptian water lily.^[2][3][7]

Semantic evolution

Theophrastus uses it for the white lily, Lilium candidum, and with “purple” for the Turk's cap lily.^[3] The comic poet Apollophanes names a choral dance so, Athenaeus a kind of loaf, and an inscription from Delos a lily-shaped architectural ornament.^[3][4][5] In the Septuagint it is the lily of the Song of Songs and the lily-shaped ornament of the lampstand in Exodus.^[8] BDAG notes that the “lilies” of the New Testament have been taken for the autumn crocus, the Turk's cap lily, the anemone or the gladiolus, and that the evidence allows no certainty.^[9]

The word survived into medieval Greek.^[10] Modern Greek has κρίνος (krínos) and κρίνο (kríno): Triantafyllidis takes κρίνος as ancient and κρίνο as formed from its accusative, while Kriaras derives κρίνος from κρίνον with a change of gender.^[11][10]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for the lily and for the Egyptian water lily.^[2][3][12]
• 5th century BC – Apollophanes names a choral dance “the lily”.^[3][4][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus distinguishes the white lily and the purple Turk's cap lily.^[3][12]
• 3rd century BC – An inscription from Delos uses it for an architectural ornament.^[3]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament speaks of the lilies of the field.^[9][2]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Athenaeus records it as the name of a kind of loaf.^[3][12]
• Modern Greek – The lily is called κρίνος (krínos) or κρίνο (kríno).^[11][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The white lily, Lilium candidum; with “purple”, the Turk's cap lily.^[3][2]
2. The Egyptian water lily or Egyptian bean, Nelumbium speciosum.^[3][2]
3. A kind of choral dance.^[3][4]
4. A kind of loaf.^[3]
5. A lily-shaped architectural ornament.^[3][8]

Word family

• κρίνινος (kríninos)
• κρινοστέφανος (krinostéphanos)

Related words

• κρινάνθεμον (krinánthemon)

Usage notes

The proverb “barer than a lily” (Julian) was said of a needy man, and the lily was also a symbol of death.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ a b 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
10. ^ a b c Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge