μυχός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /my.kʰós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /myˈxos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /myˈxos/^[1]

Forms

μῠχός (mukhós) m (genitive μῠχοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Chantraine finds no evident etymology for this expressive word.^[2] If it was first a verbal noun meaning something like “slipping in, hiding”, it may belong to a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)mewgʰ-: Frisk compared Old Armenian մխեմ (mxem, “to insert, immerse”) and a Germanic group, Old Norse smjúga (“to slip in”) and Middle High German smiegen (“to nestle”).^[3][2]

Beekes notes that the Armenian comparison is obsolete, since a separate series of voiceless aspirated stops is no longer reconstructed for Indo-European, and that it was semantically doubtful anyway.^[4][1] The Germanic words may equally come from *smewk- and match Lithuanian smùkti (“to glide away”).^[4][1] Furnée considered the word Pre-Greek without giving reasons, and Beekes points to the glosses βύσσαλος (bússalos) and Paphian μοχοῖ (mokhoî, “inside”), with a different vowel, as possible support.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is the innermost or most remote part of a place: the inmost room of a house, the back of a cave, the creeks of a harbour, a far corner of a land such as Argos.^[5][6] Hesiod's Theogony puts Tartarus in the depths of the earth (μυχῷ χθονός).^[6]

Semantic evolution

Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides use it for the inner sanctum of a temple or oracle.^[7] In Xenophanes and Pindar it is a store-chamber, and the Heraclea tablets use it for a granary.^[6][7] Herodotus and Pindar call a creek running far inland a μυχός, and Thucydides and Polybius the innermost part of a harbour or the head of a gulf.^[6][7] Callimachus has a neuter plural μυχά.^[6][2]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word.^[8] Modern Greek μυχός (mychós), a learned form, is the innermost point of a gulf or harbour.^[9][10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for the inmost part of a house, a cave or a land.^[5][6]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod places Tartarus in the depths of the earth.^[6][11]
• 6th–5th century BC – Xenophanes uses it for store-chambers.^[6][7][11]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a creek running far inland.^[6][11]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses it for the innermost part of a harbour.^[6][7][11]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses the neuter plural μυχά.^[6][11]
• Modern Greek – The learned Modern Greek μυχός (mychós) means the inmost point of a gulf.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The innermost part, recess, nook or corner of a place (a house, a cave, a tomb).^[6][7]
2. The inmost room of a house; a store-chamber, a granary.^[6]
3. The inner sanctum of a temple or oracle.^[7]
4. A creek running far inland; the innermost part of a harbour, the head of a gulf.^[6][7]
5. The interior of a country.^[7]

Word family

• ἀμυχή (amukhḗ)
• ἑπτάμυχος (heptámukhos)
• μύχατος (múkhatos)
• μύχιος (múkhios)
• μυχόθεν (mukhóthen)
• μυχοίτατος (mukhoítatos)
• μυχώδης (mukhṓdēs)
• μυχόομαι (mukhóomai)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ 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
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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
11. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge