νέκρωσις

Forms

νέκρωσις (nékrōsis) f (genitive νέκρωσεως); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek νεκρόω (nekróō, “to make dead, to deaden”) + -σις (-sis), the suffix of verbal nouns.^[1][2] The verb is from Ancient Greek νεκρός (nekrós, “dead body, corpse”);^[3] Beekes lists νέκρωσις among the late derivatives of the corpse word.^[3] Its root goes back to Proto-Indo-European *neḱ- (“violent death, corpse”), which also gave nex (“violent death, murder”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Beekes calls it a late word.^[3] The earliest texts with it are Paul's letters: in Romans 4:19 it is the deadness of Sarah's womb, past the age of bearing children, and in 2 Corinthians 4:10 the putting to death of Jesus that the apostle carries about in his body.^[4][5][2][6]

Semantic evolution

In the medical writers of the 2nd century AD, Aretaeus and Galen, it is the mortification or deadening of part of the body.^[5][2][7] Christian writers took up Paul's figurative use: Thayer explains the 2 Corinthians passage as the slow dying that Jesus underwent in God's service, and Abbott-Smith gives both "a putting to death" and "a state of death".^[8][9] Later authors used it of trees shaking off their deadness in spring and of seeds that come back to life after it.^[2]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept it for death and also for a faint, a passing loss of the senses.^[10] In Modern Greek, νέκρωση (nékrosi) is a learned word: its biological sense, the death of tissue or cells, was taken from Italian necrosi and Latin necrosis, which go back to this word; figuratively it is the deadening of feelings or instincts.^[11] English necrosis is first recorded in the 1660s, from a Latinized form of the Greek word.^[12]

Timeline

• 1st century AD – Paul uses it of Sarah's barren womb and of the dying of Jesus carried in the apostle's body.^[5][2]
• 2nd century AD – Aretaeus and Galen use it of the mortification of the body.^[5][2][7]
• 3rd century AD – Astrampsychus' dream book applies it figuratively to business that comes to a standstill.^[5][7]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts use it for death and for a faint.^[10]
• 1660s – English borrows necrosis through Latin.^[12]
• Modern Greek – The learned νέκρωση (nékrosi) is the death of tissue or cells, and figuratively a deadening of the senses.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. Mortification, the deadening of part of the body; in the New Testament, of a womb past bearing.^[5][2][6]
2. (figurative) A standstill or deadness of affairs.^[5][2]
3. A putting to death, the process of dying.^[5][2][6][9]

Related words

• νεκρός (nekrós)
• νεκρόω (nekróō)
• English necrosis

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
3. ^ a b c d 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
4. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
7. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
8. ^ Thayer, Joseph Henry (1889), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, New York: American Book Company
9. ^ a b Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
10. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com