ναυσία

Forms

ναυσία (nausía) f (genitive ναυσίας); first declension^[1] Ionic ναυσίη (Semonides, Aretaeus); Attic and later Greek ναυτία (nautía), the usual form, under which most dictionaries list the word.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is the Ionic form of ναυτία (nautía) “seasickness”, a derivative of ναύτης (naútēs) “sailor”, itself from ναῦς (naûs) “ship”.^[4][5] In ναυσία the /t/ of the stem became /s/ before the /i/ of the suffix, as often happens in Ionic, while the Attic form kept the /t/ of the base.^[5] Beekes and Frisk add that the Attic noun is at least partly a back-formation from the verb ναυτιάω (nautiáō) “to be seasick”.^[4][6] Wiktionary analyses the word directly as the noun for “ship” with the suffix -ία (-ía).^[1]

The word is literally “ship-sickness”.^[5][7] Latin borrowed the Ionic form as Latin nausea, the source of English nausea.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is the Ionic ναυσίη in Semonides of Amorgos (7th–6th century BC), where it already has the figurative sense of disgust, the revulsion a man feels.^[2][3][9]

Semantic evolution

From its literal sense of seasickness the word widened to any nausea, the feeling of wanting to vomit, and to disgust in general.^[2][3] Aristotle uses the Attic ναυτία in the plural for bouts of nausea, and the physicians kept the word: Aretaeus writes the Ionic form, and Plutarch uses it for seasickness.^[2][10][3]

Latin took the word over as Latin nausea, alongside the rarer Latin nautea from the Attic form, and through Latin it reached English, where nausea has meant vomiting or sickness since the early 15th century without ever being limited to the sea.^[8][7] In Greek the Attic form survived: Modern Greek ναυτία (naftía) is a learned word for nausea and, figuratively, for strong moral revulsion.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 7th–6th century BC – Semonides uses the Ionic ναυσίη (nausíē) for disgust.^[2][9]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses the Attic ναυτία for nausea.^[2][9]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it for seasickness.^[3][9]
• 2nd century AD – The physician Aretaeus uses the Ionic form for nausea.^[10][2][9]
• Early 15th century – English borrows nausea from Latin, in the sense of vomiting.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Seasickness.^[1][3]
2. (medicine) Nausea, the urge to vomit, from any cause.^[2][10]
3. (figurative) Disgust, revulsion.^[2][3]

Related words

• ναυτία (nautía)
• ναῦς (naûs)
• ναύτης (naútēs)
• Latin nausea
• English nausea

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c 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
5. ^ a b c Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
6. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
10. ^ a b c Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
11. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Ακαδημία Αθηνών (2014), Χρηστικό Λεξικό της Νεοελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Academy of Athens