Etymologically
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νάρκισσος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /nár.kis.sos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈnar.cis.sos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈnar.cis.sos/[1]

Forms

νάρκισσος (nárkissos) m or f (genitive ναρκίσσου); second declension[1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, because its suffix -ισσος (-issos) clearly points to a Pre-Greek word.[2][3] Chantraine likewise takes the ending as the mark of a loanword, and PHILOGLOSSA rates its non-Greek origin as very reliable.[4][5] The link with νάρκη (nárkē, “numbness”) is a folk etymology.[2][4][6]

Ancient writers made that link: Plutarch connected the flower with numbness because it dulls the nerves, and Cornutus thought it fitting for the dead and the crown of the Erinyes, because of the numbness of the dying.[4][6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter as the name of a flower, the narcissus.[2][8][5] The GLAUx corpus also has it in a fragment of the Cypria.[9]

Semantic evolution

Sophocles, Theocritus and Moschus name the flower, which covered several species.[8][5] It is usually masculine, but sometimes feminine, as in Theocritus.[5] Hippocratic writers use it in remedies, and inscriptions of the 1st and 2nd centuries AD still name it.[9][5] The adjective ναρκίσσινος (narkíssinos) means “made from narcissus” or “narcissus-coloured”.[2]

The word spread to other languages: Latin borrowed it as narcissus, and it also passed into Classical Syriac ܢܪܩܝܣ (narqīs), into Old Armenian ներգիս (nergis) and into Middle Persian nlgs, from which come Arabic نَرْجِس (narjis) and Persian نرگس (narges).[1] English took narcissus from Latin in the 1540s; the ancient plant was not the modern narcissus, but possibly a kind of iris or lily.[10] In Modern Greek νάρκισσος (nárkissos) is a learned word.[11] Modern Greek ναρκισσισμός (narkissismós, “narcissism”) (1891) renders French narcissisme.[6]

Timeline

  • 6th century BC – The Homeric Hymn to Demeter names the flower.[2][8][9]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles names it in the Oedipus at Colonus, and Hippocratic writers use it in remedies.[8][5][9]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus names it, once as a feminine.[8][5][12]
  • 1st century AD – Cornutus explains the flower from the numbness of the dying.[7]
  • 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch connects it with νάρκη (nárkē).[4][6]
  • 1540s – English borrows narcissus from Latin.[10]
  • 1891 – Modern Greek coins ναρκισσισμός (narkissismós) after the French word.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The narcissus, a flower; the name covered several species.[8][2][13]

Word family

  • ναρκίσσινος (narkíssinos)
  • νάρκη (nárkē)
  • Latin narcissus
  • English narcissus

Usage notes

As a personal name, Narcissus was common among slaves and freedmen;[14] Paul greets the Christians of the household of Narcissus in his Letter to the Romans.[14]

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. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d 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 g Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
  6. ^ a b c d e Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  7. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  8. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  12. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  13. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli
  14. ^ a b 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