λύχνος
Pronunciation
- 5th-century BC Attic: /lý.kʰnos/[1]
- 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈly.xnos/[1]
- 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈly.xnos/[1]
Forms
λῠ́χνος (lúkhnos) m (genitive λῠ́χνου); second declension[1]
Etymology
It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *luk-s-nos, from the root *lewk- (“to shine”) with the suffix *-sno-.[1][2][3] The same root gives λεύσσω (leússō, “to see”) and λευκός (leukós, “white”).[2][3] Words with the same suffix but full grade are Avestan raoxšna- (“bright”), Old Prussian lauxnos (“stars”) and Latin lūna (“moon”).[2][3] Frisk explains the zero grade of λύχνος by a Greek reluctance to use /ou/ in such forms.[2][3]
Ancient grammarians derived it from λύω (lúō, “to loosen”) and a word for “night”, as the thing that dissolves the darkness.[4]
Earliest recorded meaning
It occurs once in Homer: the Odyssey mentions a golden lamp (19.34).[5][6]
Semantic evolution
From the archaic poets on it is the usual word for a portable lamp, usually of terracotta with oil feeding a wick.[7][6] Herodotus has the plural λύχνα, and in Attic comedy the plural named the lamp market.[6] Strabo and Hesychius use it for a fish, like Latin lucerna.[6][2]
In the New Testament the lamp is set on a stand, and figuratively “the lamp of the body is the eye” (Matthew 6:22).[8] It passed into Latin lychnus.[9] Today Modern Greek λύχνος (lýchnos) is a learned word; the everyday Modern Greek λυχνάρι (lychnári) comes from the Hellenistic diminutive λυχνάριον (lukhnárion).[10][11]
Timeline
- Homer – The Odyssey mentions a golden lamp.[5][6]
- 7th–6th century BC – Alcaeus probably uses the plural λύχνα.[6][7][12]
- 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use it for a lamp.[6][13][12]
- 1st century BC–1st century AD – Strabo uses it for a fish.[6][12]
- 1st century AD – The New Testament has “the lamp of the body is the eye”.[8]
- Modern Greek – λύχνος survives as a learned word beside λυχνάρι.[10][11]
Meanings
Noun
- A portable light, a lamp.[6][7]
- (plural) The lamp market.[6]
- (figurative, New Testament) A lamp, of the eye or of a person who gives light.[8]
- A fish.[6][2]
Word family
- λυχνία (lukhnía)
- λυχνοῦχος (lukhnoûkhos)
- λυχνάριον (lukhnárion)
- λυχνεῖον (lukhneîon)
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f 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
- ^ a b c d 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
- ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
- ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ 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
- ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
- ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
- ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
- ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux