λάτρις

Forms

λᾰ́τρῐς (látris) m or f (genitive λᾰ́τρῐος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek λάτρον (látron, “payment, hire”) + -ις (-is),^[1][2] probably a derivative of that noun, as Frisk and Chantraine judge.^[2][3] The family of λάτρον (látron) and λατρεύω (latreúō, “to serve for wages”) was originally North-West Greek, unknown at first in Aeolic, Ionic and even Attic.^[4][2][3] It is usually explained as a zero grade of Proto-Indo-European *lē(i)- (“to grant, acquire”), the root of Germanic, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian words for possession and gifts,^[5][2] but Beekes rejects this because a root *leh₁- could never give the Greek initial ⟨λα⟩, and so considers the family Pre-Greek.^[4] Chantraine calls the etymology unknown, finding that Pokorny's comparisons fit neither the form nor the sense.^[3]

Latin latrō (“mercenary soldier”) was borrowed from a Hellenistic form *λάτρων (*látrōn), according to Beekes, Frisk and Chantraine;^[4][2][3] Saalfeld derives it from λάτρις itself.^[6] Ancient grammarians derived the word from the noun for “wages”, and the Etymologicum Magnum also offered a fanciful link with an intensive prefix λα- and τρέω (tréō, “to fear”).^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in Theognis, in the 6th century BC, who names “hired servants” beside slaves (λάτρισι καὶ δμωσίν).^{[9][10][11][12]}

Semantic evolution

Tragedy used it freely: Sophocles and Euripides call household servants and slaves by it, and Euripides extends it to the servants of the gods, Hermes and Iris as their messengers and Cassandra as the handmaid of Apollo.^[9][13][14] Callimachus apparently uses it once for a wage.^[13] Later poets of the Greek Anthology apply it to things, calling the spindle the servant of the thread and the raven the servant of Phoebus.^[9][10] In the Septuagint it renders a hired servant or handmaid in the Book of Job.^[15]

Its family became central in Christian vocabulary through λατρεία (latreía, “worship”) and λατρεύω (latreúō), “to serve a god”.^[3] Modern Greek has the learned λάτρης (látris), remodelled on the nouns in ⟨-ης⟩.^[16] From the Hellenistic sense of a worshipper of the gods it came to mean someone passionately devoted to a person or a pastime.^[16]

Timeline

• 6th century BC – Theognis uses it for hired servants.^[9][11][12]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles and Euripides use it for servants and slaves, and Euripides for the servants and messengers of the gods.^[9][13][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus apparently uses it for a wage.^[13][12]
• 1st century BC – Archias, in the Greek Anthology, calls the spindle the servant of the thread.^[9][12]
• 3rd century AD – An inscription from Samos uses it for a hired servant.^[9]
• Modern Greek – The learned word λάτρης (látris) means an ardent admirer or devotee.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hired servant, a hireling; as a feminine, a handmaid.^[9][13]
2. A slave.^[9][13]
3. A servant of a god: an attendant in a temple; a messenger of the gods, said of Hermes and Iris, or Cassandra as the handmaid of Apollo.^[9][13]
4. A messenger of an army (Euripides).^[13]
5. (figurative) Of things: the spindle as the servant of the thread, the raven as the servant of Phoebus.^[9]
6. Apparently a wage (Callimachus).^[13]

Related words

• λατρεία (latreíā)
• λάτρον (látron)
• λατρεύω (latreúō)
• Latin latrō

Usage notes

Ammonius distinguishes it from θής (thḗs), one who serves for wages: a λάτρις is one taken in war and brought into slavery.^[17] Bekker's Anecdota call it the Thessalian word for a slave.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
3. ^ a b c d e 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 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
5. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
8. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
11. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
12. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
14. ^ Montanari, Franco (2015), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
16. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
17. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)