νέμος

Forms

νέμος (némos) n (genitive νέμους or νέμεος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *némos, a neuter s-stem.^[2][3][1] Beekes and Frisk take it to be the same word as Latin nemus (“forest, sacred grove”), and a Celtic derivative with a t-suffix, Gaulish nemeton (“sanctuary”) and Old Irish nemed (“holy place”), stands beside it as τελετή (teletḗ) stands beside τέλος (télos).^[2][3][4] The Gaulish word is also known through Greek: Strabo names the meeting place of the Galatians Δρυνέμετον, an "oak sanctuary".^[4]

Further links are uncertain: some compare Sanskrit नमति (námati, “to bend”) and Sanskrit नमस् (námas, “bow, worship”), as if the word had first meant a bend or hollow of land, and others νέμω (némō) in its sense "to pasture", as if it were a wooded pasture.^[3][2] Wiktionary derives it from that verb,^[1] but Chantraine, following Benveniste, rejects both connections and stops at the comparison with Latin and Celtic.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is the Iliad (11.480), where a wounded stag is torn by jackals "in a shady glade" (ἐν νέμεϊ σκιερῷ).^[5][6] Chantraine notes that it never clearly means a pasture: the sense is a grove or wood.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It remained a rare poetic word: after Homer it occurs in a lyric passage of Sophocles' Ajax (413), in an epigram of the Greek Anthology and in a Thessalian inscription of the 3rd century BC.^[5][4][6] The CGL gives Sophocles' use the sense "pasture".^[7] Hesychius glosses it as a wooded place that also has grazing, and adds a "glen", the female genitals and the hollow of the eye.^[8][4]

The valley of Nemea in the Argolid, with its grove of Zeus, is probably named after it, and with it the Nemean games.^[2][3][4]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it of a shady glade where a stag is brought down.^[5][9]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod names the place Νεμέα (Neméā), probably derived from it.^[2][4][10]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it in a lyric passage of the Ajax.^[5][6]
• 3rd century BC – An inscription from Phthiotis uses it.^[5][4]
• 1st century BC to 1st century AD – Strabo still uses the word.^[6][10]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius glosses it as a wooded place with grazing, and as the female genitals and the hollow of the eye.^[8][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A grove, glade, wooded place.^[5][7][2]
2. (Sophocles) A pasture.^[7]
3. (Hesychius) The female genitals; the hollow of the eye.^[8]

Word family

• Νεμέα (Neméā)

Related words

• Latin nemus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
9. ^ Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge