κόρυμβος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /kó.rym.bos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈko.rym.bos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈko.rym.bos/^[1]

Forms

κόρυμβος (kórumbos) m (genitive κορύμβου); second declension^[1] Plural κόρυμβοι and κόρυμβα.^[2]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, related to κορυφή (koruphḗ, “top”) with a prenasalized variant of the suffix and the variation of φ and β typical of that layer; he also compares κόρυς (kórus, “helmet”).^[3][4] Chantraine likewise relates it to κορυφή (koruphḗ), explaining the nasal, which voiced the labial, as expressive or popular.^[5] PHILOGLOSSA rates the Pre-Greek origin as very reliable.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Iliad has it once, in the plural κόρυμβα, for the high-pointed sterns of ships; the meaning was already disputed in antiquity.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Aeschylus and Euripides used it of a ship's stern or bow, and Herodotus and Aeschylus for the summit of a hill.^[2][7] Heraclides Ponticus used it for a knot of hair, and Moschus and later writers for a cluster of flowers or berries, especially of ivy.^[3][2][7]

It was borrowed as Latin corymbus.^[8] Modern Greek κόρυμβος (kórymvos) is a learned word that took its botanical sense from French corymbe.^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses the plural for ships' sterns.^[2][6]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for the top of a hill.^[2]
• 4th century BC – Heraclides Ponticus uses it for a knot of hair.^[2]
• 2nd century BC – Moschus uses it for a cluster of flowers.^[7]
• Modern Greek – κόρυμβος (kórymvos) is a botanical term, after French.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The uppermost point; of a ship, the stern-post or perhaps the bow-post.^[7][2]
2. The summit of a hill or a mound.^[2][7]
3. A knot or tuft of hair.^[2][3]
4. A cluster of flowers or berries, especially of ivy.^[7][3]

Word family

• κορυμβοφόρος (korumbophóros)
• κορυμβώδης (korumbṓdēs)

Related words

• κορυφή (koruphḗ)
• Latin corymbus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
7. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki