Etymologically
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νυός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ny.ós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /nyˈos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /nyˈos/[1]

Forms

νῠός (nuós) f (genitive νῠοῦ); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *snusós (“daughter-in-law”), an old feminine o-stem.[2][3][1] Only Armenian keeps the same stem; the other languages moved the word into other classes: Latin nurus became a u-stem after socrus (“mother-in-law”), and Sanskrit स्नुषा (snuṣā́), Old High German snur and Old English snoru became ā-stems.[2][4][3]

The initial /s/ before /n/ was lost in Greek.[5][2] A link with νεῦρον (neûron, “sinew”), as “the one bound in”, is impossible according to Beekes, because that word had a laryngeal.[2][4] Others have tried to connect it with υἱός (huiós, “son”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad it means a daughter-in-law, and once, more loosely, a woman married into a race of warriors.[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed poetic: after Homer and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite it is found in Apollonius of Rhodes, Moschus and Plutarch.[7][8] In Theocritus it is used more loosely of a bride or wife.[5][7][2]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and Odyssey use it of a daughter-in-law.[5][6]
  • 7th century BC – The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite uses it.[5][8]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses it for a bride.[5][7][9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A daughter-in-law.[5][7]
  2. A bride or wife.[5][7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ a b Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
  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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  7. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  8. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  9. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge