Etymologically
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ναῦς

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /nâːu̯s/[1]
  • IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈnaɸs/[1]
  • IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈnafs/[1]

Forms

νᾱῦς (nāûs) f (genitive νᾱός or νεώς); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *nā́us, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us (“boat”), the old Indo-European word for a ship.[1][2] Its inflection still largely matches Sanskrit and Latin: ναῦς = Sanskrit नौस् (náuṣ), νῆα (nêa) = Sanskrit नावम् (nā́vam) and Latin nāvem (whence the nominative nāvis), νῆες (nêes) = Sanskrit नावस् (nā́vas).[2][3] Mycenaean has the compound Mycenaean Greek na-u-do-mo, “shipbuilders”.[1]

Cognate with Persian ناو (nâv, “boat”), Old Armenian նաւ (naw, “ship”) (perhaps an Iranian loan), Old Irish nau (“ship”) and Old Norse nór (“ship”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean tablets have Mycenaean Greek na-u-do-mo.[1] Homer uses it from the first book of the Iliad (1.12), and “at the ships” means in the camp formed by the ships drawn up on the shore (Iliad 2.688).[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The dialects kept many forms: epic and Ionic νηῦς (nēûs), genitive νεώς (neṓs), Doric ναός (nāós).[2] Thucydides speaks of “long ships”, warships built for speed, and Herodotus of round-built merchant ships;[5] Herodotus also uses νέες alone for triremes.[5]

In non-literary Hellenistic Greek it was rare, and the New Testament has it only once (Acts 27:41), πλοῖον (ploîon) being the usual word.[5] Its compounds include ναύαρχος (naúarkhos) “commander of a ship”, and Latin borrowed nauta and nausea from Greek.[2] Modern Greek ναυς is a learned word.[6]

Timeline

  • Mycenaean – Linear B has the compound na-u-do-mo.[1]
  • Homer – The Iliad uses it for the ships at Troy.[4][5]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus distinguishes warships and merchant ships.[5][7]
  • 5th century BC – Thucydides speaks of “long ships”.[5][7]
  • 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it once.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ship.[5][1]
  2. (plural, Homer) The ships drawn up on shore, the camp.[5]
  3. A warship; a trireme.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  7. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge