κρηπίς

Forms

κρηπῑ́ς (krēpī́s) f (genitive κρηπῖδος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] It may be derived from a noun, like other words for clothing such as κνημίς (knēmís) and χειρίς (kheirís), or it may simply have taken over their ending.^[2][3] The old comparison with Lithuanian kùrpė (“shoe”) is formally impeccable, as Beekes notes, but Fraenkel rejected it and Frisk and Chantraine follow him.^[2][3] The technical meaning suggests a loanword, which Chantraine finds plausible but unproven,^[3][2] and Beekes notes that the suffix -ῑδ- occurs in Pre-Greek words.^[2]

It passed into Latin as crepida (“half-boot”) and crepīdō (“base, quay”).^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first recorded use is in Pindar, figuratively: to lay a “foundation” of wise words, or of song.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Ionic and Attic it is the foundation or base of a building, an altar or a tomb, from Herodotus on,^[5][3] and the walled bank of a river or canal, a quay.^[5][3] It is used figuratively in Xenophon, for whom self-control is the foundation of virtue, and in Aeschylus' Persians, where the bottom of misery has not yet been reached.^[5]

The other sense, a man's half-boot, is found from the 5th century BC in Hegemon and Xenophon;^[5][2] in Theocritus “boots” stands for soldiers.^[5] Pollux records a shoe-shaped cake.^[5] Modern Greek κρηπίδα (kripída) is a learned word, a term of ancient architecture, beside κρηπίδωμα (kripídoma).^[7][8]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar speaks of laying a foundation of words and song.^[5][9]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a foundation and for the quays of a river.^[5][9]
• 5th century BC – Hegemon uses it for a half-boot.^[5][9]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses “boots” for soldiers.^[5][9]
• Modern Greek – κρηπίδα is a term of ancient architecture.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A man's high boot, half-boot.^[5][2]
2. (plural) Soldiers' boots, and so soldiers.^[5]
3. A shoe-shaped cake.^[5]
4. A foundation, base of a building, altar or tomb; figuratively, a groundwork.^[5]
5. The walled bank of a river or canal, a quay; the abutment of a bridge.^[5]

Word family

• ἐϋκρήπις (eükrḗpis)
• κρηπιδοποιός (krēpidopoiós)
• κρηπίδωμα (krēpī́dōma)

Related words

• Latin crepida
• Latin crepido

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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
4. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge