Etymologically
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μύραινα

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /my̌ː.rai̯.na/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈmy.rɛ.na/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈmy.re.na/[1]

Forms

μῡ́ραινα (mū́raina) f (genitive μῡραίνης); first declension[1]

Etymology

Beekes calls it a clear Pre-Greek word, from Pre-Greek: names of fishes are often Pre-Greek, the suffix -αινα (-aina) is well known in such words, and so is an initial σ- that comes and goes, as in the by-form σμύραινα (smúraina).[2][1]

Wood (1928) connected it with σμύρις (smúris, “emery powder”) and with words for grease and fat, such as Old High German smero, from Proto-Indo-European *smer(u)-, which would suit the eel as a fat creature.[2][3][4] Beekes objects that this does not explain the long /uː/ of the Greek word.[2] Chantraine and Frisk reject Strömberg's derivation from μῦς (mûs, “mouse”) on grounds of both form and meaning.[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Sicilian comic writers Epicharmus (who scans the /u/ long) and Sophron use it for the moray eel, and Aeschylus in the Libation Bearers pairs it with the viper as a sea serpent.[5][4][2]

Semantic evolution

Aristophanes' Frogs couples it with the viper too.[5] The masculine μῦρος (mûros) or σμῦρος (smûros) was formed from it.[4] Aristotle took it to be the male of the moray, but it is a separate variety of the fish.[4][3]

Latin borrowed the word as muraena,[6] and English moray (1620s) comes from that through Portuguese moreia.[7] Modern Greek μύραινα (mýraina), a learned form, is the moray.[8][9]

Timeline

  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus pairs it with the viper as a sea serpent.[5][10][11]
  • 5th century BC – Sophron uses it in his mimes.[2][4][11]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes couples it with the viper in the Frogs.[5][10][11]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle writes about the moray in his zoological works.[10][4][11]
  • 1620s – English borrows moray from Portuguese, which took it from Latin.[7]
  • Modern Greek – The learned Modern Greek μύραινα (mýraina) names the moray.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The moray, a sea eel (Muraena helena).[5][2]
  2. Coupled with the viper, a sea serpent.[5]
  • σμύραινα (smúraina)
  • Latin muraena
  • English moray

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b c d e f g 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  9. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  10. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge