λίμνη

Forms

λῐ́μνη (límnē) f (genitive λῐ́μνης); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a zero-grade formation from Ancient Greek λιμήν (limḗn, “harbour”), or a word closely related to it, and to λειμών (leimṓn, “moist meadow”).^[1] Beekes explains these nouns as the remains of one old paradigm with ablaut in both stem and suffix, roughly *leimōn, accusative *limenm, genitive *limnos; λίμνη takes the zero grade of both and was enlarged as a first-declension (ā-stem) noun.^[2] Frisk and Chantraine also stress this old alternation.^[3][4]

The family is isolated, with no clear counterpart outside Greek, so its further origin is a matter of guesswork.^[2][4] Starting from the idea of moisture or standing water, scholars have compared Latin līmus (“mud”) and, with initial s-, Old High German slīm (“slime”).^[4][3] Pokorny instead starts from a sense “low place, bay” and joins it to līmen (“threshold”).^[2][5] Etymonline calls the word of uncertain origin and gives the link with the Latin word for mud as the likeliest guess.^[6]

Ancient grammarians derived λίμνη from λίαν (lían, “very”) and μένω (ménō, “to stay”), because its water stays still, or saw it formed from the word for harbour as ποίμνη (poímnē) is from ποιμήν (poimḗn).^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for a lake, for a pool (Tantalus stands in one in the underworld), for the water a flooding river spreads over the plain, and for the sea itself.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

From Homer on its core sense is a body of standing water, a pond, lake or marsh, and named lakes appear already in the Iliad, such as the Boebean lake.^[11][10] Plato distinguishes it from a marsh, and Herodotus uses it for an artificial pool or reservoir.^[10][11] The poets kept the Homeric use for the open sea, and in tragedy it can mean the sea in lyric passages.^[10][11] An Athenian quarter near the Acropolis, once probably marshy, was called Λίμναι, “the Marshes”.^[10][2]

In the New Testament it names the Lake of Gennesaret, and Revelation speaks of a “lake of fire” as the place of final punishment.^[12][13] Hesychius glosses it as the sea and the Ocean.^[14]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word, also figuratively.^[15] It survives as Modern Greek λίμνη (límni), a lake, natural or artificial.^[16][17] English uses the stem in learned compounds such as limnology.^[6]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad names lakes with it and the Odyssey uses it of the sea.^[9][10]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for an artificial pool or reservoir.^[10][18][11]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes and Thucydides mention the Athenian quarter called Λίμναι.^[10][18]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for the Lake of Gennesaret and for the “lake of fire”.^[12][13]
• Modern Greek – λίμνη (límni) is the ordinary word for a lake.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A body of standing water: a pond, lake or marsh.^[10][11]
2. An artificial pool or reservoir.^[10][11]
3. (poetic) The sea, open water.^[10][11][9]
4. (New Testament) In “lake of fire”, the place of final punishment.^[13][12]

Word family

• λιμναῖος (limnaîos)
• λιμνάζω (limnázō)
• λιμνώδης (limnṓdēs)
• λιμνίον (limníon)

Related words

• λιμήν (limḗn)
• λειμών (leimṓn)
• English limnology

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
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. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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 Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
12. ^ a b c 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
13. ^ a b c United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
14. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
15. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
16. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
17. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
18. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge