Etymologically
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κυδώνιον

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /ky.dɔ̌ː.ni.on/[1]
  • IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /cyˈðo.ni.on/[1]
  • IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /cyˈðo.ni.on/[1]

Forms

κῠδώνῐον (kudṓnion) n (genitive κῠδωνίου); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is short for “Cydonian μῆλον (mêlon, “apple”)”, the neuter of Κυδώνιος (Kudṓnios, “Cydonian”) used as a noun; the phrase was also made into the compound μηλοκυδώνιον (mēlokudṓnion).[1][2] The adjective is from Κυδωνία (Kudōnía), a city of Crete, as Hesychius notes.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The lyric poets Alcman and Stesichorus already speak of “Cydonian apples”, meaning quinces, and Ibycus of Cydonian apple trees.[2][4] The neuter alone, κυδώνια, is used for the fruit by Dioscorides.[2]

Semantic evolution

Aristophanes compared a young girl's breasts to quinces with the adjective.[2][4] Hesychius records other, figurative senses of κυδώνιον: “great and remarkable”, or “deceitful, abusive”.[3][2]

Latin borrowed the word as cotōneum, and it passed into Proto-Slavic as *kъduňa.[1] Medieval Greek kept it as κυδώνι (kydóni), the Modern Greek word for the quince.[5][1]

Timeline

  • 7th century BC – Alcman mentions Cydonian apples.[2]
  • 7th–6th century BC – Stesichorus mentions Cydonian apples.[2][4]
  • 6th century BC – Ibycus mentions Cydonian apple trees.[2][4]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses the adjective of a girl's breasts.[2][4]
  • 1st century AD – Dioscorides uses the neuter plural for quinces.[2]
  • 12th–17th century – Vernacular Greek has κυδώνι.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The quince, the fruit.[1][2][5]
  2. (Hesychius) Something great and remarkable; something deceitful or abusive.[3][2]
  • μῆλον (mêlon)
  • Latin cotoneum
  • English quince

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
  4. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ a b c Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr