Etymologically
Log in

κύβος

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 20:25. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ký.bos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈcy.βos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈcy.vos/[1]

Forms

κύ̆βος (kúbos) m (genitive κύβου); second declension[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.[2][3] Beekes suggests, with a question mark, that it is Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, since words for dice are often loans and the Lydians claimed, according to Herodotus (1.94), to have invented the game;[4] Babiniotis thinks it probably Lydian.[4][5][2]

Because of its rare sense “hollow above the hips of cattle”, it was once connected with a Germanic word for the hip and with Latin cubitus (“elbow”), which Beekes and Frisk reject.[4][3] Wiktionary mentions the proposed root *kewbh₂- (“to lie down”).[1] Beekes refers a Paphian κύβος “cup”, recorded by Hesychius, to κύπελλον (kúpellon);[4][2] PHILOGLOSSA rates its traditional connection with a Vedic word for a jar as very unreliable.[4][2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the 5th century BC, in the plural, for dice: in Aeschylus' Seven against Thebes Ares will decide the matter “in the dice” (414), and Herodotus tells how the Lydians claimed the invention of dice.[7][8]

Semantic evolution

In the 5th and 4th centuries BC κύβοι are dice and the game of dice;[7][9] Euripides uses it of the single pips, and the tragedians of the dice thrown by a god or by fortune.[7][9][4] The sense “cube” appears in Timaeus Locrus, and Plato and Aristotle use it of a cubic number.[4][7] By resemblance it named blocks of stone or wood in Hellenistic papyri and inscriptions, and in comedy a cake or a piece of salted fish;[4] Rhianus uses it of a vertebra.[4]

Latin borrowed it as cubus,[10] whence English cube through French.[11] Greek scholars of the Enlightenment used κύβος αριθμού for the cube of a number,[12] and Modern Greek κύβος (kývos) is a learned word.[13]

Timeline

  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses the plural for dice.[7][14]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus reports that the Lydians claimed to have invented dice.[4][7]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it of a cubic number.[4][14]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Menander has “let the die be cast”.[7][14]
  • 1st century AD – Timaeus Locrus uses it for the cube.[7][14]
  • 1550s – English borrows cube through French and Latin.[11]
  • 1798 – Nikiforos Theotokis uses κύβος αριθμού for the cube of a number.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A die; in the plural, dice and the game of dice.[7][9]
  2. A single pip on a die.[7][4]
  3. (mathematics) A cube; a cubic number.[7][4]
  4. A cube-shaped block of stone or wood; a cake; a piece of salted fish.[4]
  5. A vertebra; the hollow above the hips of cattle.[4]

Word family

  • κυβεία (kubeía)
  • κυβευτής (kubeutḗs)
  • κυβευτικός (kubeutikós)
  • κυβεύω (kubeúō)
  • κυβικός (kubikós)
  • κύβιον (kúbion)
  • κυβισμός (kubismós)

Usage notes

“Let the die be cast”, ἀνερρίφθω κύβος, is found in Menander and in Plutarch's Life of Caesar;[7] Latin has iacta alea esto.[7] Sophocles has “the dice of Zeus always fall well”, that is, the god's work is no chance.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  6. ^ 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 g h i j k l m n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  9. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b Κάτοπτρον: Ιστορικό λεξικό επιστημονικών όρων (Greek scientific terms 1700–1821)
  13. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  14. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge