μνᾶ

Forms

μνᾶ (mnâ) f (genitive μνᾶς); first declension^[1] Attic always contracts it (nominative plural μναῖ); Ionic has the nominative plural μνέαι (mnéai) and accusative μνέας, with accusative singular μνῆν and genitive μνῆς in Herodas.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is a Semitic loanword, ultimately from Akkadian manû (“mina”), the Mesopotamian unit of weight.^[5][3][6] Wiktionary takes it through Aramaic, and Szemerényi posits Phoenician *mənē as its immediate source.^[1][3] Rosół takes *μνέα (*mnéa-) as the original Greek form, with the unstressed Semitic vowel before the nasal lost, as in χλαῖνα (khlaîna) and λέμβος (lémbos).^[5]

Cognate with Biblical Hebrew מָנֶה (mānē) and mn, and compare Sumerian mana.^[5][3] The older view that it is Egyptian is rejected, and Chantraine adds that Sanskrit मना (manā́), a word for a gold ornament found once, has nothing to do with it.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in an Ephesian inscription of the 6th century BC and in Hipponax, as a unit of weight and money.^[5][2][4]

Semantic evolution

In Herodotus, Thucydides and the Attic orators the mina is both a weight and a sum of money, worth 100 drachmas and a sixtieth of a talent.^[4][2][7] The New Pauly notes that the mina was not 100 drachmas everywhere: on Aegina it was 70, at Corinth probably 150, and the Attic weight-mina was heavier than the coin-mina.^[8] Diminutives and adjectives were formed from it in comedy and Xenophon: μναδάριον (mnadárion) and μναῖος (mnaîos) “weighing or worth a mina”.^[3]

The Septuagint uses it for Hebrew mānē, and in the New Testament it is the sum the servants receive in the parable of the minas (Luke 19).^[5][6][9] It was borrowed as Latin mina.^[10] Modern Greek μνα (mna) is a learned word for the ancient unit.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 6th century BC – An Ephesian inscription and Hipponax record it.^[5][2]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus, Thucydides and Antiphon use it for a weight and a sum of money.^[4][7]
• 4th century BC – Demosthenes uses it as a weight of 100 drachmas.^[2]
• 1st century AD – Luke tells the parable of the minas.^[6]
• Modern Greek – μνα (mna) survives as a learned word for the ancient unit.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. The mina, a unit of weight, a sixtieth of a talent, usually 100 drachmas.^[2][4]
2. A sum of money of the same weight in silver, 100 drachmas.^[2][4][6]

Word family

• μναδάριον (mnadárion)
• μναῖος (mnaîos)
• μναϊαῖος (mnaïaîos)
• ἡμιμναῖον (hēmimnaîon)

Related words

• Latin mina

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
6. ^ a b c d 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
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας