κωμῳδός

Forms

κωμῳδός (kōmōidós) m (genitive κωμῳδοῦ); second declension.^[1][2]

• Late Boeotian κωμαϝυδός, which stands for an uncontracted *κωμαοιδός, is found in an inscription from Orchomenus.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is a compound from Ancient Greek κῶμος (kômos, “revel, band of revellers”) + ἀοιδός (aoidós, “singer”), “singer in a revel”.^[4][5][6] The Boeotian spelling preserves the uncontracted form of the second element.^[3][1] Aristotle's Poetics records and rejects the derivation, defended by the Peloponnesians, from κώμη (kṓmē, “village”).^[4]

The origin of κῶμος (kômos) itself is obscure: Beekes leaves open an Indo-European origin (a connection with Sanskrit words for “praise”) and a Pre-Greek one, while Chantraine allows a link with the word for “village” and the family of κοινός (koinós).^[6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from the late 5th and the 4th century BC in Attic prose: Lysias and Xenophon use it of the singers of the comic chorus, and Plato contrasts the actors of comedy with those of tragedy.^[1][7][5]

Semantic evolution

Its original sense is a singer in the κῶμος, the band of revellers, or in the chorus of comedy, and Aristotle speaks of a chorus of κωμῳδοί, and paying for such a chorus was a public duty.^[1][4] In the plural it stood for the performance of comedy itself, as in Aeschines and the Athenian inscriptions that announce honours “at the comedies”.^[1]

In Hellenistic Greek it became the comic actor, in a Zenon papyrus of the 3rd century BC and later in Plutarch, and then any actor (Marcus Aurelius, Athenaeus).^[1][6] Delphic inscriptions seem to use it for a singer of comic lyrics.^[1] Late grammarians use it for a comic poet, calling Aristophanes “the κωμῳδός”.^[1][3] It was borrowed as Latin comoedus, a comic actor.^[8]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Lysias and Xenophon use it of members of a comic chorus.^[1][7][9]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle writes of the chorus of κωμῳδοί, and Aeschines uses the plural for a comic performance.^[1][9]
• 3rd century BC – A Zenon papyrus uses it for a comic actor.^[1]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it for a comic actor.^[1][9]
• 2nd century AD – Marcus Aurelius uses it for an actor in general.^[1][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A singer in the κῶμος (kômos) or in the comic chorus; in the plural, a performance of comedy.^[1][3][5]
2. (Hellenistic) A comic actor; an actor in general.^[1][2]
3. A singer of comic lyrics.^[1]
4. (late) A comic poet.^[1][3][2]

Related words

• κῶμος (kômos)
• κωμῳδία (kōmōidía)
• κωμικός (kōmikós)
• κωμάζω (kōmázō)
• τραγῳδός (tragōidós)
• Latin comoedus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
2. ^ a b c Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli
3. ^ a b c d e Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
4. ^ a b c d 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
5. ^ a b c Woordenboek Grieks/Nederlands (2012–), Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, https://woordenboekgrieks.nl
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge