νέκυς

Forms

νέκῡ̆ς (nékūs) m (genitive νέκῠος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *neḱ- (“violent death; to perish”), extended with a u-suffix that recurs in Avestan nasu- (“corpse”).^[2][3][4] The bare root noun survives in the gloss νέκες (nékes, “the dead”) in Hesychius, which matches Latin nex (“violent death, murder”) exactly; νεκρός (nekrós), the usual word for a corpse, is a ⟨ρο⟩-formation from the same root with no parallel outside Greek.^[2][3][4] Outside Greek the root is verbal, as in Sanskrit नश्यति (náśyati, “to disappear, perish”) and necō (“to kill”).^[2][3][5]

The length of the ⟨υ⟩ is disputed.^[5][2] Homer has a long ῡ in the nominative and accusative, but later poets a short one.^[5] Frisk and Chantraine follow Schwyzer in comparing Greek ῡ with the Iranian alternation of /u/ and /aːw/, while Beekes, with Cuypers, holds that the vowel was originally short, matching the Iranian ablaut.^[4][3][2] A Laconian form νέκυρ (nékur) is recorded by Hesychius.^[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is a corpse, often in the Iliad, and in the plural the shades of the dead, above all in the eleventh book of the Odyssey.^[5][6][7] In the Iliad the same dead man is called both νέκυς and νεκρός within two lines.^[5]

Semantic evolution

After Homer it remained mostly a poetic word, used by Pindar, Sophocles and Euripides, but Herodotus has it in prose and it appears in a Cretan law code and an Attic inscription of the 4th century BC.^[5][7][3] Sophocles uses it as an adjective, “dead”.^[5] Its derivative νέκυια (nékuia), a rite for calling up the dead, became the name of the eleventh book of the Odyssey, and νεκυομαντεῖον (nekuomanteîon), an oracle of the dead, is found from Herodotus on.^[3][2] Late prose, such as Plutarch and Herodian, still used it occasionally.^[5]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for corpses on the battlefield, and the Odyssey for the shades in the underworld.^[5][6][8]
• 7th–6th century BC – Sappho uses it for the shades of the dead.^[5][9]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it in prose for the body of a dead man.^[5][9]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it as an adjective meaning dead.^[5][9]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch still uses it in prose.^[5][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dead body, corpse.^[5][7][6]
2. (in the plural) The shades of the dead in the underworld.^[5][7][6]

Adjective

1. Dead.^[5]

Word family

• νέκυια (nékuia)
• νεκυομαντεῖον (nekuomanteîon)
• νεκύσια (nekúsia)
• νεκύδαλος (nekúdalos)
• νεκυϊκός (nekuïkós)
• νεκυϊσμός (nekuïsmós)

Related words

• νεκρός (nekrós)
• Latin nex

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 d e f 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
4. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge