κωμῳδία

Forms

κωμῳδῐ́ᾱ (kōmōidíā) f (genitive κωμῳδῐ́ᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

From κωμῳδός (kōmōidós), first the singer of the κῶμος (kômos, “revel”), the merry procession of Dionysus, a compound of the same word and the stem of ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”) or ἀοιδός (aoidós, “singer”).^[2][1][3] It is formed like τραγῳδία (tragōidíā).^[2]

The origin of the word for “revel” itself is uncertain: a link with Sanskrit शंस (śáṃsa-) “praise” has been proposed, but Beekes suggests it is Pre-Greek.^[4] Aristotle reports that the Dorians, who claimed to have invented comedy, derived the name from κώμη (kṓmē, “village”), which LSJ calls a wrong explanation.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is found from the late 5th century BC in Aristophanes, who uses it for comedy and for his own plays.^[6][5][7]

Semantic evolution

In Aristophanes and Plato κωμῳδία is both a single comic play and the genre.^[6] Aristotle distinguished old and new comedy, and later writers (Plutarch, Athenaeus) the Old, Middle and New Comedy,^[5] and Plato speaks metaphorically of the “tragedy and comedy of life”.^[5] Since comedy mocked real people, the lexica also gloss the word as mockery and abuse.^[8][9]

Latin borrowed the word as Latin comoedia, and through Latin it spread to other languages: French comédie, English comedy, German Komödie.^[10][2] Medieval vernacular Greek had it for a comedy.^[11] In Modern Greek κωμωδία (komodía) is a comedy in the theatre or the cinema, and figuratively a farce, a pretence.^[12][2]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it of comedy and of his own plays, and Plato and Isocrates use it too.^[6][5][7]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle distinguishes old and new comedy.^[5]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses the terms Old, Middle and New Comedy.^[5]
• Modern Greek – The word means a comedy, and figuratively a farce.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Comedy, comic drama, as a genre or a single play.^[5][6]
2. Generally, a play.^[5]
3. (figurative) Mockery, abuse.^[8][9]

Word family

• κωμῳδιογράφος (kōmōidiográphos)
• κωμῳδέω (kōmōidéō)
• κωμικός (kōmikós)

Related words

• κῶμος (kômos)
• κωμῳδός (kōmōidós)
• τραγῳδία (tragōidíā)
• Latin comoedia
• English comedy

Usage notes

The Atticist lexica gloss the word with “insults”, “disparagement” and “mockery”, reflecting how Old Comedy ridiculed real people by name.^[8][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
3. ^ Μανδουλίδης, Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της αρχαίας ελληνικής
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b c Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck
9. ^ a b c Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki