Etymologically
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κυπάρισσος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ky.pá.ris.sos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /cyˈpa.ris.sos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /cyˈpa.ris.sos/[1]

Forms

κῠπᾰ́ρῐσσος (kupárissos) f (genitive κῠπᾰρῐ́σσου); second declension[1] Attic κυπάριττος (kupárittos).[2][3] Forms with ⟨κυφ-⟩: an adjective in an inscription from Aegina, the epithet Κυφαρισσία of Artemis in Laconia and Κυφαρισσίτας of Pan in Crete.[3] Mycenaean Greek ku-pa-ri-se-ja, an adjective “of cypress wood”.[4]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, because of the “foreign phoneme” written ⟨-σσ-⟩, Attic ⟨-ττ-⟩, the suffix ⟨-ισσ-⟩, and above all the variant with ⟨Κυφ-⟩ in a place name and in divine epithets.[5][3] PHILOGLOSSA rates this explanation as very reliable.[6] Chantraine calls it a Mediterranean word of unknown origin.[7] Beekes thinks that a Hebrew tree name may come from the same source, but Rosół rejects the old Semitic etymologies from the Hebrew words for pitch and for the wood of Noah's ark.[5][4]

It passed into Latin as cupressus, perhaps through Etruscan.[7][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean already has the adjective ku-pa-ri-se-ja, “of cypress wood”.[4] In Homer the Iliad has it as a place name, and the Odyssey for the cypress tree.[8][9][2]

Semantic evolution

Herodotus, Euripides, Plato and Theocritus use it for the tree or its wood, Plato in the Attic form κυπάριττος (kupárittos).[2][9] Divine epithets formed from it were given to Apollo on Cos, Artemis in Laconia and Pan in Crete.[3]

Hellenistic Greek formed the diminutive κυπαρίσσιον, which became medieval κυπαρίσσι(ν) and Modern Greek κυπαρίσσι (kiparísi), the ordinary word for the tree, while κυπάρισσος is a learned word in Modern Greek.[10][11] Through Latin it reached many European languages, among them French cyprès, Italian cipresso and German Zypresse.[11] English cypress, first recorded in the late 12th century, came through Old French and Late Latin, and cypress branches were an emblem of mourning used at funerals.[12]

Timeline

  • Mycenaean period – The Linear B tablets have the adjective ku-pa-ri-se-ja.[4]
  • Homer – The Iliad has it as a place name and the Odyssey for the cypress tree.[8][9]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus and Euripides use it for the tree and its wood.[2][6][13]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato writes the Attic form κυπάριττος (kupárittos).[9][2][13]
  • Late 12th century – English borrows cypress, through Old French.[12]
  • Modern Greek – The tree is called κυπαρίσσι (kiparísi), from a Hellenistic diminutive.[10][11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The cypress tree, Cupressus.[2][8]
  2. Cypress wood.[2]

Word family

  • κυπαρίσσινος (kuparíssinos)
  • κυπαρισσίας (kuparissíās)
  • κυπαρισσόκομος (kuparissókomos)
  • χαμαικυπάρισσος (khamaíkupárissos)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  3. ^ a b c d Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
  5. ^ a b c 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
  6. ^ a b Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  9. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  11. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  12. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  13. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge