μέδιμνος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /mé.dim.nos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈme.ðim.nos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈme.ðim.nos/^[1]

Forms

μέδιμνος (médimnos) m (genitive μεδίμνου); second declension^[1] Usually masculine; the feminine is only a variant reading in Herodotus.^[2]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, because of the suffix ⟨-μν-⟩, common in loanwords; for the same reason Chantraine had called it Mediterranean in 1933.^[3][4] The form Cretan Greek ϝεδιμνος (wedimnos) at Gortyn shows an alternation of ⟨ϝ⟩ and ⟨μ⟩ that Beekes also counts as Pre-Greek, while Chantraine's dictionary suspects a dissimilation or an error.^[4][5]

The other view, given in Chantraine's dictionary, Wiktionary and Babiniotis, derives it from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”), the root of μέδομαι (médomai, “to provide for”) and μέδω (médō, “to rule”), comparing Latin modius (“bushel”) beside modus (“measure”) and Proto-Germanic *mētō (“measure”).^[5][1][6] Its ending would then be like that of λίμνη (límnē) or βέλεμνον (bélemnon), but neither view explains the ⟨ι⟩.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fragment of Hesiod names it as a corn measure.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

It was a dry measure, especially for grain: at Athens it held 48 khoinikes (khoînix), about 52 litres, but other states had their own standards, and Herodotus and Polybius speak of the Attic and the Sicilian medimnus.^[8][3][2] Lysias speaks of buying up grain by the medimnus, and Xenophon of measuring out silver with one, a picture of great wealth.^[2] Diodorus uses it for the pipe of a fountain in Magna Graecia.^[2]

In Modern Greek μέδιμνος (médimnos) is a learned word for the ancient measure.^[9][6]

Timeline

• Before the 6th century BC – A fragment of Hesiod names it as a measure.^[2][7][10]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus speaks of the Attic medimnus.^[2][10]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes jokes that no man has authority beyond a medimnus.^[2][10]
• 1st century BC – Diodorus Siculus uses it for the pipe of a fountain.^[2][10]
• Modern Greek – It is a learned term for the ancient measure.^[9][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The medimnus, a dry measure, especially for grain, equal at Athens to 48 khoinikes (about 52 litres) but varying between states.^[8][3][2]
2. (Magna Graecia) The pipe of a fountain.^[2]

Word family

• ἡμιμέδιμνον (hēmimédimnon)

Related words

• μέδομαι (médomai)
• μέδω (médō)
• Latin modius

Usage notes

An Athenian law cited by Isaeus forbade a child or a woman to make a contract worth more than a medimnus of barley; hence a line of Aristophanes' Ecclesiazusae saying that no man has authority beyond a medimnus means that he is no better than a woman.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge