Etymologically
Log in

μάρπτω

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 30 October 2026 at 10:47. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /márp.tɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈmarp.to/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈmarp.to/[1]

Forms

μᾰ́ρπτω (márptō) [1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, because it has no cognates outside Greek and varies in ways that Indo-European cannot explain.[2] He groups it with Hesychius' glosses βράψαι (brápsai, “to gather, consume, hunt”) and βράπτειν (bráptein, “to eat, hide”), with initial /br/ from /mr/, and with βρακεῖν (brakeîn, “to understand”) and βράξαι (bráxai, “to grasp, bite”), which end in a velar.[2] He sets up a form Pre-Greek *mr(a)kʷ-, whose labiovelar gave a labial in some forms and a velar in others, unlike the outcome of an inherited labiovelar.[2]

The forms with a velar have been compared with a Sanskrit verb meaning “to touch, take”, but neither that link nor Schwyzer's assimilation of /m…k/ to /m…p/ explains the final labial, as Chantraine notes.[2][3] Walde and Pokorny once posited alternating roots Proto-Indo-European *merk- and *merkʷ-, which Pokorny later abandoned.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for laying hold of a person, overtaking a fugitive, and of sleep taking hold of someone.[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic verb, chiefly epic.[4] Hesiod has a perfect μέμαρπε, said of old age that has seized someone, and the reduplicated aorist infinitive μαπέειν.[4][3][2] Pindar uses it of grasping snakes by the neck, Empedocles of taking drugs in the hands, Euripides of seizing the reins, and Aeschylus of a legal vote that catches a defendant like a hunted animal.[4][6] In Sophocles the nether world seizes a person, that is, death carries him off.[6] Callimachus has the passive, of a nymph caught by a pursuing lover.[4][6]

Aeschylus derived from it the agent noun μάρπτις (márptis) “robber”.[2][3]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it of seizing a person and overtaking a fugitive.[4][5]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses the perfect of old age taking hold.[4][6][7]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it of grasping snakes.[4][6][7]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus coins the noun μάρπτις (márptis) “robber”.[2][3][7]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it of death carrying a person off.[6][7]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses the passive.[4][6][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To seize, grasp, take hold of a person, a part of the body, weapons or reins.[4][6]
  2. To overtake, catch up with a fugitive; to chase down wild animals.[4][6]
  3. To catch or bring down prey.[6]
  4. Of sleep, old age or death: to take hold of, carry off.[4][6]
  5. (with a negative) To touch, of a goddess whose feet do not touch the ground.[6]
  6. Of a thunderbolt: to strike, inflicting wounds.[6]

Word family

  • καταμάρπτω (katamárptō)
  • μάρπτις (márptis)
  • συμμάρπτω (summárptō)
  • βρακεῖν (brakeîn)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e 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 c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge