μέλεος
Pronunciation
- 5th-century BC Attic: /mé.le.os/[1]
- 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈme.le.os/[1]
- 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈme.le.os/[1]
Forms
μέλεος (méleos) m (feminine μελέᾱ, neuter μέλεον); first/second declension[1]
Etymology
It has no established etymology.[2][3] Its accent matches adjectives of material such as χρύσεος (khrúseos, “golden”), but its meaning puts it with primary adjectives such as ἐτεός (eteós, “true”) and κενεός (keneós, “empty”); like ἐτεός (eteós) from *ἐτεϝός (*etewós), it may come from *μέλεϝος (*mélewos).[3][2][1] Beekes asks whether the accent is an Aeolic retraction.[3]
Ancient grammarians such as Philoxenus derived it from a negative and a verb “to wish”: what nobody wants is vain.[4]
Earliest recorded meaning
In Homer it means idle, useless or vain: a vain effort or an unearned boast.[5][6]
Semantic evolution
Its neuter served in Homer as an adverb, “in vain”.[5] After Homer it meant unhappy or wretched, first in an oracle quoted by Herodotus and then often in tragedy, of persons, sufferings and circumstances; comedy took it up in parodies of tragedy.[5][6] Apollonius of Rhodes revived the Homeric sense “vain”.[6]
Timeline
- Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for what is vain or useless.[5][6]
- 5th century BC – An oracle quoted by Herodotus begins “O wretched ones”.[5][6][7]
- 5th century BC – The tragedians use it often for “unhappy, miserable”.[6][7]
- 3rd century BC – Apollonius of Rhodes uses it again for “vain”.[6]
Meanings
Adjective
- Idle, useless, vain, futile.[5][6]
- (neuter as adverb) In vain.[5]
- Unhappy, wretched, miserable, pitiful.[6][5]
Word family
- μελεοπαθής (meleopathḗs)
- μελεόφρων (meleóphrōn)
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b 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
- ^ a b c 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
- ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
- ^ a b c d e f g h Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge