Etymologically
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κῆρ

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kɛ̂ːr/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈcir/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈcir/[1]

Forms

κῆρ (kêr) n (genitive κῆρος); third declension[1] Poetic κέαρ (Pindar, Bacchylides, tragedy); Homer has only κῆρ.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ḱḗr (“heart”),[1][4] an old monosyllabic neuter root noun with ablaut, the starting point of καρδία (kardía).[4][5][6] Its long vowel may have been kept because the word was a monosyllable.[5] The zero grade of the oblique cases is seen in the genitive of Latin cordis, which in Greek would have given a different stem.[4][5]

Cognates are Hittite kēr, Sanskrit हृद् (hṛ́d), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍄𐍉 (hairtō), Lithuanian širdìs and Old Irish cride.[4][5][7]

The disyllabic κέαρ (kéar) was created by poets as a false archaism from the dative of κῆρ, on the model of ἔαρ (éar), contracted ἦρ (êr) “spring”.[4][6] LSJ, on the contrary, takes κῆρ to be contracted from the longer form.[2][1] Ancient grammarians derived it from “burning”, from the mixture of hot and cold, or from κηρός (kērós, “wax”), because knowledge is wiped from it as from wax.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is the heart in the chest, and the heart as the seat of life, thought and feeling; the dative κῆρι is used as an adverb, “with all one's heart”.[9][2]

Semantic evolution

The word is poetic and has only the nominative, accusative and dative singular.[3] Homer always has κῆρ, while the tragedians always use the form κέαρ.[2] In Theognis, Pindar, Bacchylides and tragedy it is the seat of emotions and courage.[3] Plato plays on its likeness to κηρός (kērós), the wax that takes impressions, for the “heart” of the soul.[3] Callimachus addresses a person as “heart”.[3]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for the heart.[9][2]
  • 6th century BC – Theognis uses it for the seat of emotion.[3][10]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar has the form κέαρ.[3][10]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato plays on the word and κηρός “wax”.[3][10]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses it in addressing a person.[3][10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The heart, the organ in the chest.[3][9]
  2. The heart as the seat of life, thought, feeling and courage.[3][9][2]
  3. (with a name in the genitive, or in the vocative) A person.[3]

Word family

  • κηρόθι (kēróthi)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  7. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
  8. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  9. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  10. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge