λῦμα

Forms

λῦμᾰ (lûma) n (genitive λῡ́μᾰτος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes traces it to a root Proto-Indo-European *luH- (“dirt; to pollute”).^[2] λῦμα and its companion noun λύμη (lúmē, “outrage, ruin”) stand to each other as γνῶμα (gnôma) to γνώμη (gnṓmē), and they come from a primary verb meaning “to pollute”, lost in Greek and replaced by λυμαίνομαι (lumaínomai).^[2] That verb survives in Latin polluō (“to pollute”), which also has the verbal noun lutum (“mud”), matching Old Irish loth (“dirt”).^[2][3] The form Albanian lum (“slime, mud”) corresponds to the Greek nouns.^[2][3] Wiktionary gives the root as *lew- (“dirt, mud”).^[1] Beekes rejects the derivation from λύω (lúō, “to loosen”) proposed by Sinclair,^[2] and Rosół lists Burkert's comparison with Akkadian luʾʾû (“to soil”) among the rejected Semitic etymologies.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Iliad, always in the plural: men purify themselves and throw the λύματα into the sea, and a goddess cleanses all the dirt from her body with ambrosia.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The word means both the water used in washing and the dirt it removes, and so offscourings of every kind.^[5][3] in Sophocles' Ajax it is used of blood on the hands;^[5][7] Callimachus uses it for the traces of childbirth, the refuse of a feast and dung; and the Hippocratic writings for catarrhal discharges.^[5][7] Strabo uses it of the city sewage that the Roman sewers flush into the Tiber.^[5][3]

In the singular it became a moral stain: in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus someone is a disgrace to old age, and in Euripides' Trojan Women Hector is called the λῦμα, the ruin, of the Achaeans.^[5][3] In this sense it overlaps with λύμη.^[5][2] The Suda explains the Sophoclean phrase as “you are uneducated even in old age”.^[8]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses the plural for the dirt washed off in purification.^[5][6][9]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it for blood on the hands and for a moral stain.^[5][3][10]
• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of a person, Hector, the ruin of the Achaeans.^[5][10]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses it for refuse and dung.^[5][7][10]
• 1st century BC – 1st century AD – Strabo uses it for the sewage of Rome.^[5][3]
• 10th century AD – The Suda explains the plural both as “offscourings” and as “pledges”.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (mostly plural) Water used in washing, or the dirt removed by washing; offscourings.^[5][7]
2. Refuse, waste, filth; sewage.^[5][3][7]
3. (figurative) A moral stain, disgrace.^[5][3]
4. Ruin, outrage (the same as λύμη (lúmē)); of a person, the ruin of others.^[5]

Word family

• λυμαίνομαι (lumaínomai)
• ἀπολυμαίνομαι (apolumaínomai)

Related words

• λύμη (lúmē)
• λύθρος (lúthros)
• Latin polluō
• Latin lutum

Usage notes

LSJ records a separate λῦμα (B), from λύω (lúō, “to loosen, release”), meaning a pledge, the same as ἐνέχυρον (enékhuron); it is known only from the plural in the Suda.^[5][8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Montanari, Franco (2015), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, ed. Madeleine Goh and Chad Schroeder, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c Adler, Ada, ed. (1928–1938), Suidae Lexicon, 5 vols, Leipzig: Teubner
9. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge