μῆλον
Greek has two nouns spelled μῆλον: an old word for sheep and goats, and the word for the apple and other tree fruit.[1][2][3]
μῆλον1 sheep, goat
Pronunciation
- 5th-century BC Attic: /mɛ̂ː.lon/[4]
- 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈmi.lon/[4]
- 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈmi.lon/[4]
Forms
μῆλον (mêlon) n (genitive μήλου); second declension[4]
Etymology
The word for sheep and goats is probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁lo- (“small cattle”), an old name of small livestock.[1][3] It matches Old Irish mil (“small animal”) exactly, and the West Germanic word for a cow, as in Dutch maal (“young cow”).[1][3] Old Armenian մալ (mal, “sheep”) and a Ukrainian word for small cattle have the vowel a instead.[1][3] Ačaṙyan and Clackson, cited by Beekes, take the Armenian word for a loan from Arabic, and Wiktionary keeps it apart for that reason.[1][4]
Beekes and Chantraine connect the Slavic adjective for “small”, Old Church Slavonic малъ (malŭ), and, with an initial s-, the Germanic word for “small, narrow”, as in Old English smæl and English small, which is often used of small cattle; positing Proto-Indo-European *(s)meh₁l- with its ablaut grades brings all these words together.[1][3][4]
Earliest recorded meaning
In Homer the word is nearly always plural and means the small cattle, sheep and goats together, as opposed to oxen; an adjective is added to say which sex is meant.[5][2] The singular appears twice in the Odyssey, once of a sheep and once of a goat.[5][6]
Semantic evolution
The word belongs to poetry: Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and Sophocles use it, while prose says πρόβατα (próbaton) instead.[3][2] Poets widened it to herds in general, even to cattle, to beasts as opposed to men, and especially to sacrificial animals.[2] The Doric form is also μῆλον, and it occurs in personal names such as Εὔμηλος.[2]
Its many compounds name shepherds and their work, from the Homeric μηλοβοτήρ (mēlobotḗr, “shepherd”) to Pindar's and Euripides' μηλοβότας (mēlobótas).[1][3] Hellenistic Greek made μηλωτή (mēlōtḗ, “sheepskin”) from it.[1]
Timeline
- Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it, mostly in the plural, for sheep and goats.[5][7]
- Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Works and Days contrasts the small cattle with the oxen.[2][7]
- 5th century BC – Pindar, Aeschylus and Sophocles use it in lyric and tragedy, often of sacrificial beasts.[2][3][8]
- 4th–3rd century BC – The comic poet Philemon has the derivative μηλωτή “sheepskin”.[1][8]
Meanings
Noun
- (chiefly plural) Small livestock, sheep and goats, as opposed to oxen.[2][6][5]
- (singular) A sheep or a goat.[6][5]
- (poetic) Herds in general; beasts as opposed to men, especially sacrificial animals.[2]
Word family
- δεξίμηλος (dexímēlos)
- μηλοβοσκός (mēloboskós)
- μηλοβότας (mēlobótas)
- μηλοβοτήρ (mēlobotḗr)
- μηλόβοτος (mēlóbotos)
- μηλονόμος (mēlonómos)
- μηλοσκόπος (mēloskópos)
- μηλοσφαγέω (mēlosphagéō)
- μηλοτρόφος (mēlotróphos)
- μηλοφόνος (mēlophónos)
- πολύμηλος (polúmēlos)
- φερέμηλος (pherémēlos)
- μήλειος (mḗleios)
- ἐπιμήλιος (epimḗlios)
- μηλωτή (mēlōtḗ)
μῆλον2 apple, tree fruit
Pronunciation
- 5th-century BC Attic: /mɛ̂ː.lon/[4]
- 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈmi.lon/[4]
- 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈmi.lon/[4]
Forms
μῆλον (mêlon) n (genitive μήλου); second declension[4]
Etymology
The apple is a Mediterranean word, from Pre-Greek, which in Greek replaced the Indo-European name of the apple.[1][3][9] The Doric and Aeolic form is μᾶλον (mâlon).[1][2] It was once compared with Hittite maḫla-, but that Hittite word means a grapevine or a vine shoot.[1][4] Kroonen, cited by Wiktionary, instead reconstructs a byform Proto-Indo-European *smh₂l-, which would also give šamalu- (“apple”).[4]
Latin mālum (“apple”), later mēlum, was borrowed from Greek.[1][3][10]
Earliest recorded meaning
In the Iliad it means tree fruit in general, as in “the blossoms of the fruit” of an orchard; in the Odyssey it is the apple itself.[5][2] Hesiod's Theogony names the golden apples of the Hesperides.[2][6]
Semantic evolution
With an adjective the word named other fruit: the “Cydonian apple” was the quince, the “Median apple” the citron, the “Persian apple” the peach and the “Armenian apple” the apricot; the quince could also be called simply μῆλον.[2][3][9] Herodotus uses it of the apple-shaped ornament on a spear.[6][2]
Metaphor took it to a woman's breasts in Aristophanes and Theocritus, to the cheeks in papyri from the 3rd century BC, to the tonsils in the physician Rufus, and to apple-shaped cups in the inventories of Delos.[2][1][3] Coptic borrowed it as ⲙⲏⲗⲟⲛ, attested from about AD 300.[11]
Medieval Greek kept the word, and it lives on as Modern Greek μήλο (mílo), the apple.[12][13] The anatomical sense “Adam's apple” is a learned calque on French pomme d'Adam, and Modern Greek γεώμηλο (geómilo) “potato” was coined after French pomme de terre.[13][9]
Timeline
- Homer – The Iliad uses it for tree fruit, the Odyssey for apples.[5][2]
- Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony tells of the golden apples of the Hesperides.[2][6][7]
- 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of an apple-shaped ornament on spear shafts.[6][2][8]
- 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses the plural for a woman's breasts.[2][6][8]
- 3rd century BC – Papyri use it for the cheeks, and inscriptions from Delos for apple-shaped cups.[2]
- 1st century AD – Dioscorides names the quince, the citron and other fruits with it and a qualifying adjective.[2][8]
- Modern Greek – Modern Greek μήλο (mílo) means the apple.[13][9]
Meanings
Noun
- An apple; more generally any fruit of a tree.[2][6]
- With an adjective, other fruits: the quince (Κυδώνιον), the citron (Μηδικόν), the peach (Περσικόν), the apricot (Ἀρμενιακόν), the crab apple (ἄγριον).[2]
- The golden apples of the Hesperides.[6]
- An apple-shaped ornament on a staff or spear.[6]
- The seed vessel of the rose.[2][1]
- (plural, figurative) A woman's breasts.[2][6]
- (figurative) The cheeks; the tonsils; an apple-shaped cup.[2][1]
Word family
- κοκκύμηλον (kokkúmēlon)
- μηλέα (mēléā)
- μηλοφόρος (mēlophóros)
- μῆλοψ (mêlops)
- ἁμαμηλίς (hamamēlís)
- ἐπιμηλίς (epimēlís)
- κεδρόμηλον (kedrómēlon)
- κιτρόμηλον (kitrómēlon)
- μελίμηλον (melímēlon)
- μηλίζω (mēlízō)
- μήλινος (mḗlinos)
- μηλίτης (mēlítēs)
- μηλίς (mēlís)
- μήλωθρον (mḗlōthron)
Related words
- Latin mālum
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 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 j k l 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 d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
- ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
- ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
- ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
- ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
- ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
- ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki