κύμινον

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /ký.miː.non/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈcy.mi.non/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈcy.mi.non/^[1]

Forms

κύμῑνον (kúmīnon) n (genitive κυμίνου); second declension^[1] Mycenaean Greek ku-mi-no, plural ku-mi-na.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a Semitic loanword:^[3][1] compare Akkadian kamūnu (“cumin”), Ugaritic kmn, Biblical Hebrew כמון (kammōn), Phoenician kmn and Arabic كمون (kammūn).^[3][1][4] BDAG calls it a word of Phoenician origin.^[5] Frisk suggests that it may have been borrowed from Semitic twice, and Kretschmer saw the same Semitic words in the plant names κάμων (kámōn) and σκαμμωνία (skammōnía, “a kind of bindweed”).^[6] Ruijgh, however, thought it was first a loan from Anatolia or the Aegean, with the Pre-Greek suffix ⟨-ῑν-⟩, and that Semitic took the word from the same source, a view Beekes finds possible.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Mycenaean, as ku-mi-no on a Linear B tablet from Mycenae (MY Ge 605).^[2][3][4] In literature it appears from the Hippocratic writings and Sophron on, for cumin.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

The seeds were small and cheap, and “he split a cumin seed” was said of a skinflint by Sophron, Menander and Theocritus.^[7][8] Theophrastus and Dioscorides distinguish cultivated cumin, Cuminum cyminum, from several wild plants of the name.^[7] The Septuagint uses it in Isaiah for Hebrew kammōn, and in the New Testament the Pharisees tithe even cumin.^[3][7][5] Latin borrowed it as cuminum, and Coptic took it over as well.^[9][10]

It survived into medieval Greek, with the form κύμινο in Vlachos.^[11] Modern Greek κύμινο (kímino) is still the name of the spice.^[12]

Timeline

• Mycenaean period – A Linear B tablet from Mycenae records ku-mi-no.^[2][3]
• 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writings use it, and Sophron has the proverb of splitting a cumin seed.^[7][13]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes the plant.^[7][13]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides distinguishes cultivated and wild cumin, and the New Testament mentions the tithing of cumin.^[7][5][13]
• About AD 800 – A Coptic manuscript has the loanword.^[10]
• Modern Greek – κύμινο (kímino) names the spice.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Cumin, Cuminum cyminum, and its seeds.^[7][5]
2. With “wild”, other plants: wild cumin, Lagoecia cuminoides, and Nigella arvensis.^[7]

Related words

• Latin cuminum

Usage notes

Modern Greek keeps the phrase “before you can say cumin”, meaning in a flash.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Микенско-русский словарь (Mycenaean–Russian dictionary)
3. ^ a b c d e f Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
4. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
5. ^ a b c d 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
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 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
8. ^ Photius, Lexicon, ed. Christos Theodoridis, vol. 1 (Α–Δ) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982); ed. Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1822)
9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
10. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
11. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge