Etymologically
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λαιός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /lai̯.ós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /lɛˈos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /leˈos/[1]

Forms

λαιός (laiós) m (feminine λαιᾱ́, neuter λαιόν); first/second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *laiwós,[2][1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *leh₂iwos (“left”), an old Indo-European word for “left”.[3][1][2] Cognate with Latin laevus, Proto-Slavic *lěvъ and Russian левый (lévyj).[3][1][4] It has the same vowels as σκαιός (skaiós, “left”).[2]

Chantraine finds the word in a gloss of Hesychius, λαίβα (laíba) for ⟨*λαίϝα⟩, “shield”, the thing carried on the left arm, but Beekes thinks this unlikely.[2][3] Furnée's attempt to compare λαφός (laphós, “left-handed”) and to make the word Pre-Greek should be set aside, as λαιός cannot be separated from the Latin word.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tyrtaeus, in the 7th century BC, has it in an exhortation to hold out the shield with the left hand (“λαιᾷ μὲν ἴτυν προβάλεσθε”).[5][3][6]

Semantic evolution

It is not an Ionic-Attic word but a dialectal, chiefly Doric one, used especially in military contexts.[2] Homer says ἀριστερός (aristerós) instead, and λαιός belongs to poetry: Aeschylus has “on the left hand”, Euripides the left hand, the left side of a ship and the left wing of an army, and Parmenides “on the left”.[5][7]

Later prose takes it up again: Polybius quotes a proverb about taking with the left hand what is given with the right, and has it of the left wing.[5][7] The word has disappeared from Modern Greek.[2]

Timeline

  • 7th century BC – Tyrtaeus uses it of the left hand holding the shield.[5][6]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses “on the left hand”, and Parmenides “on the left”.[5][7][6]
  • 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of the left hand and of the left wing of an army.[5][7][6]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it in prose, in a proverb and of the left wing.[5][7][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Left, on the left side; as a feminine noun, the left hand.[5][7]
  2. Of position or direction, on the left; of a ship's side or the wing of an army, left.[7][5]

Usage notes

A separate noun λαιός names a kind of thrush, probably the blue rock thrush, in Aristotle, and Beekes and Chantraine derive it from λᾶας (lâas, “stone”), comparing the Modern Greek name “rock blackbird”, and the manuscripts also read φαιός and βαιός.[5][3][2] On the Greek words for “left”, λαιός, σκαιός and ἀριστερός, see Chantraine's study.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g 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
  4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press