Etymologically
Log in

κυρτός

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 20:21. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kyr.tós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /cyrˈtos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /cyrˈtos/[1]

Forms

κῠρτός (kurtós) m (feminine κῠρτή, neuter κῠρτόν); first/second declension[1]

Etymology

Frisk and Chantraine take it as an old inherited adjective with no exact match elsewhere.[2][3] Its closest comparison is Latin curvus (“curved, bulging, crooked”), which differs only in its suffix; on that view κυρτός continues a zero grade of the root coloured by /u/, and Chantraine and Pokorny assign it ultimately to the widespread root Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”), with Irish cor (“circuit, turn”) and κορώνη (korṓnē).[3][2][4] Beekes doubts all of this: a reduced grade coloured by /u/ is hard to justify, a root *kur- has a structure foreign to Indo-European, and the link with that word is unfounded, so he leaves the origin open.[5] Wiktionary follows Beekes and calls the etymology unclear.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on: in the Iliad it describes humped, rounded shoulders and the arched crests of waves.[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

In early poetry it is a word for things bulging or arched: shoulders, waves, a wheel traced with a peg and string in Euripides, a dolphin's back.[8][7] Chantraine notes that it belongs to epic, Ionic and poetic language and is absent from Attic prose.[3] The Hippocratic writers use it of the upper arm, which curves outwards, and Aristotle gave it the technical sense “convex”, opposed to κοῖλος (koîlos) “concave”, for the surface of the earth and the edge of the moon;[7] Polybius uses it of the outer face of a shield.[7][8] From it came κυρτότης (kurtótēs) “convexity” and the verb κυρτόω (kurtóō) “to bend, arch”, with κύρτωμα (kúrtōma).[3][2]

The Septuagint uses it for a hunchbacked man, and a papyrus of the 1st–2nd century AD has the same sense.[9][7] Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word with the same meaning.[10] In Modern Greek κυρτός (kyrtós) is a learned word for “convex” (a convex lens or mirror) and “hunched”; κυρτότητα (kyrtótita), κυρτώνω (kyrtóno) and κύρτωμα (kýrtoma) survive with it.[11][3][12]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it of humped shoulders and of arched waves.[6][7]
  • 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of a wheel traced in outline; the Hippocratic writers of a curved bone.[7][8][13]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for “convex”, as opposed to “concave”.[7][8][13]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius calls the outer face of a shield its convex surface.[7][8][13]
  • 1st–2nd century AD – A papyrus uses it of a hunchbacked person.[7]
  • Modern Greek – The learned word Modern Greek κυρτός (kyrtós) means “convex” and “hunched”.[11]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Bulging, swelling, arched: of waves curling at the crest.[7][8]
  2. Rounded, humped; of a person, hunchbacked.[7][8][9]
  3. Curving, forming a curve: of a wheel, a headland, a lion's spine.[8]
  4. Convex, as opposed to κοῖλος (koîlos) “concave”; as a neuter noun, the convex side or outer edge of a curve.[7][8]

Word family

  • κυρτόω (kurtóō)
  • κύρτωμα (kúrtōma)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  3. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
  5. ^ 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 Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
  10. ^ 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge