κριός

Forms

κρῑός (krīós) m (genitive κρῑοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][1] Beekes reconstructs something like Proto-Indo-European *kriH-wo-, and rejects the traditional link with κέρας (kéras, “horn”) as formally impossible.^[2][1] A comparison with the Germanic name of the reindeer, Old Norse hreinn and Old English hrān, is formally awkward too.^[2] Closer are Balto-Slavic words for "curved", such as Old East Slavic кривъ (krivŭ) and Lithuanian kreĩvas (“crooked, bent”).^[2][1] If these are related, the ram was named after its curved horns.^[2] Forssman instead compared a Gothic verb meaning "to shake".^[2]

Babiniotis, like LSJ, still derives it from the root of the word for “horn”.^[3][4] The chickpea sense has nothing to do with Latin cicer (“chickpea”), according to Beekes, since the plant was named after the shape of its pods.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Odyssey, of a ram.^[5][4][6]

Semantic evolution

From Herodotus on the word is the ordinary name of the ram.^[4][5] Its butting gave it the sense "battering-ram" in Xenophon and Polybius, and a proverb said that the ram "paid back his upbringing", of ingratitude, because a ram butts those who raised it.^[4][5][7]

Later it named the constellation Aries, a sea-monster, a volute shaped like a ram's horn and a variety of chickpea.^[4][2] Medieval Greek kept the word, but in Modern Greek κριός (kriós) is learned, beside the common Modern Greek κριάρι (kriári), and is used for the ancient battering-ram, a hydraulic pump and the sign Aries.^[8][9][10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey uses it for a ram.^[4]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus mentions rams, including wild ones.^[4][11]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for the battering-ram.^[4][5][11]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Aratus uses it for the constellation Aries, and Theophrastus for a kind of chickpea.^[4][11]
• 2nd century AD – Oppian uses it for a sea-monster.^[4][11]
• Modern Greek – It survives as a learned word for the ram and the battering-ram.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ram, a male sheep.^[4][5]
2. A battering-ram.^[4][5]
3. (astronomy) The constellation Aries.^[4]
4. A sea-monster.^[4][2]
5. A variety of chickpea.^[4][2]
6. A volute on the Corinthian capital, twisted like a ram's horn.^[4]

Word family

• κριοπρόσωπος (krioprósōpos)
• κριώδης (kriṓdēs)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ Zalizniak, Anna A., et al. (2024), Database of Semantic Shifts (DatSemShift), Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, https://datsemshift.ru
8. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge