κωφός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /kɔː.pʰós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /koˈɸos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /koˈfos/^[1]

Forms

κωφός (kōphós) m (feminine κωφή, neuter κωφόν); first/second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes connects it with κηφήν (kēphḗn, “drone”) and κεκαφηότα (kekaphēóta, “gasping, exhausted”).^[2] The vowels could be reconstructed as an ablauting root ending in Proto-Indo-European *-h₂bʰ-, but there is nothing to compare outside Greek; if the name of the drone is Pre-Greek, as Beekes thinks, the same probably holds for this word.^[2][1] Chantraine considers the link with that word certain.^[3][4]

Ancient grammarians derived it from κόπτω (kóptō, “to cut”), as if the voice of the mute had been cut out.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it in the sense “blunt, dull”: in the Iliad, Diomedes scorns the arrow of Paris as “blunt, the missile of a feeble, worthless man” (κωφὸν γὰρ βέλος ἀνδρὸς ἀνάλκιδος οὐτιδανοῖο, 11.390).^[3][4][6] Homer also calls the earth “senseless” and a swelling wave “silent”.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

After Homer the word was used of people: “mute” in an oracle in Herodotus, which says that it understands the dumb and hears one who does not speak,^[3][6][7] and “deaf” from the Homeric Hymn to Hermes on.^[2][6] It could also mean deaf and dumb, and was said of a dull mind or of obscure words.^[3] In the New Testament it is both the mute man who begins to speak and the deaf.^[7]

The vernacular form Modern Greek κουφός (koufós, “deaf”) arose in medieval Greek, its first vowel coloured by the [k] and [f] around it.^[8][9] Beside it Modern Greek has the learned κωφός (kofós), the deaf person in medical and official use, as in the phrase “dialogue of the deaf” for talk where nobody listens.^[8]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it of a blunt missile, of the senseless earth and of a silent wave.^[6][3]
• 6th century BC (perhaps) – The Homeric Hymn to Hermes uses it for “deaf”.^[2][10][6]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus quotes an oracle that uses it for “mute”.^[3][7][11]
• 1st century AD – The Gospels use it of the mute and the deaf whom Jesus heals.^[7]
• 7th century AD – A Coptic text has the borrowed word, spelled ⲕⲟⲩⲫⲟⲥ.^[12]
• Medieval Greek – The vernacular form κουφός (koufós) appears beside it.^[8][9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Blunt, dull, ineffective, of a weapon.^[6][13]
2. Without feeling, senseless, of the earth.^[6]
3. Silent, noiseless, of a wave or swell; of a harbour, quiet.^[6]
4. Mute, dumb.^[6][7]
5. Deaf; also deaf and dumb.^[6][7][3]
6. Dull of mind; of words, obscure.^[3]

Word family

• κωφότης (kōphótēs)
• ὑπόκωφος (hupókōphos)
• δύσκωφος (dúskōphos)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
5. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
8. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
11. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
12. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
13. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press