λάτρον

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /lá.tron/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈla.tron/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈla.tron/^[1]

Forms

λάτρον (látron) n (genitive λάτρου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, with a Pre-Greek suffix -ρ-.^[2][3][1] The family seems to have been North-West Greek, unknown at first in Aeolic and Ionic and even in Attic.^[2][4][5] It is usually analysed as a zero grade of a root Proto-Indo-European *lē(i)- (“to grant, gain”), seen in Germanic, Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian words for possession or giving,^[5][1] but Beekes objects that such a root could never give Greek ⟨λα-⟩, and Chantraine finds the comparisons fit neither the form nor the sense.^[2][4] PHILOGLOSSA rates the Pre-Greek view as of medium reliability.^[6]

Latin latrō (“hired soldier”) was borrowed from an unattested Greek *λάτρων (*látrōn).^[2][6] The Etymologicum Parvum derived the word from an intensive ⟨λα-⟩ and τηρέω (tēréō) “to watch over”, the wages being what the hired man keeps his eye on.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only Classical use is in Aeschylus' Suppliants, in the plural, for payment or rent for lodging.^[8][2][9]

Semantic evolution

Callimachus uses it for a payment or reward, and the Suda and the Etymologicum Magnum gloss it as μισθός (misthós) “wages”.^[8][2][6] The word itself was rare, but its family was large: λάτρις (látris) “hired servant”, λατρεύω (latreúō) “to serve for wages, serve a god”, and λατρεία (latreía) “service, worship”, important in the Septuagint and in Christian vocabulary.^[2][4]

Modern Greek no longer has λάτρον, but keeps Modern Greek λατρεύω (latrévo) “to worship, adore” and the back-formation Modern Greek λάτρα (látra) “service”.^[7][10][11]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it for the payment of rent.^[8][2][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses it for a payment or reward.^[8][6][12]
• 9th century AD – The Etymologicum Parvum derives it from τηρέω “to watch over”.^[7]
• Modern Greek – Only its derivatives survive, such as λατρεύω and λάτρα.^[7][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Payment, hire, wages; in Aeschylus, rent for lodging.^[8][2]
2. A reward.^[8]

Word family

• λάτρις (látris)
• λατρεύω (latreúō)
• λατρεία (latreía)

Related words

• Latin latrō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
3. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c 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
5. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d 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 Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
8. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
12. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge