λέπας

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /lé.pas/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈle.pas/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈle.pas/^[1]

Forms

λέπας (lépas) n (indeclinable)^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Beekes thinks the likeness to Latin lapis (“stone”) can hardly be chance and takes both as borrowings from a Mediterranean language, a view Frisk also mentions;^[2][4] Wiktionary adds that it may have come through Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek.^[1] Chantraine finds the vowel of the Latin word hard to explain and considers instead a link with λέπω (lépō, “to peel, strip”), in the sense “to detach”;^[3][5] Wiktionary gives the same alternative, from Proto-Indo-European *lep- (“to peel”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Simonides calls a mountain “an evil crag” in an epigram, and Aeschylus' Agamemnon uses it for the peaks over which the beacon fires pass, among them the crag of Hermes on Lemnos and the height of Cithaeron (283, 298).^[6][7][5]

Semantic evolution

It is found only in the nominative and accusative singular, in poetry (Aeschylus, Euripides) and, as a place name, in Thucydides (7.78, in Sicily).^[6][8][7] Euripides has πρὸς λέπας, “uphill”, with a sense of effort.^[8] Its derivatives are λεπαῖος (lepaîos, “rocky”) (Euripides) and λεπάς (lepás, “limpet”), named because the animal clings to the rock.^[3][4]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Simonides uses it in an epigram.^[6][9]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it for the peaks of the beacon chain in the Agamemnon.^[6][7]
• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it, and the phrase “uphill”.^[6][8]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses it in a place name in Sicily.^[6][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bare rock, crag, cliff or mountainside.^[6][8]
2. πρὸς λέπας: uphill, against effort.^[8]

Word family

• λεπαῖος (lepaîos)
• λεπάς (lepás)

Related words

• Latin lapis

Usage notes

Ammonius distinguishes the barytone λέπας, a piece broken off a mountain, from the oxytone λεπάς, a small shellfish that grows on rocks.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
6. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Montanari, Franco (2015), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
10. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)