νῶτον

Forms

νῶτον (nôton) n (genitive νώτου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It has no certain cognates.^[2][3] Since Curtius it has been compared with Latin natis (“buttock”), plural natēs; if the two are related, Beekes allows either an old root noun Proto-Indo-European *n(e)h₃t- (Schrijver) or a root *nh₂t- (de Vaan), made thematic in Greek.^[2][3][1] Chantraine and Babiniotis reject the comparison as weak in meaning and impossible in form, since νῶτον is a thematic neuter and the Latin word a feminine ⟨i⟩-stem.^[4][5] Chantraine also notes that the Indo-European names of the back do not agree with one another.^[4][5] Szemerényi proposed a bold derivation from the word seen in Sanskrit सानु (sā́nu, “ridge, back”), through a form with a nasal extension like that of γόνυ (gónu).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for the back of men and animals, often in the plural for one back, and also for the chine of an animal served as a choice cut of meat.^[6][7][8] In the Odyssey the plural already names the broad back of the sea.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

The gender of the singular is not clear in Homer and Hesiod, while Pindar, Euripides and Aristophanes have the neuter νῶτον, which the Atticist Phrynichus prescribes, but the Hippocratic writers, Xenophon and Aristotle also use a masculine νῶτος.^[6] In prose it served in phrases for flight and for attack from behind: to turn the back, to fall upon the rear of an army.^[6][7] Poets extended it to any broad surface: the sea, the earth, the sky, a mountain ridge.^[6][7]

Medieval Greek had the plural for the back of the body, and Modern Greek uses the learned νώτα (nóta) for the back and for the rear of an army.^[9][10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for the back and for the chine served at a meal.^[6][8][11]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses the neuter singular, of the back of an eagle and of Typhon.^[6][12][13]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses κατὰ νώτου of attacking from the rear.^[6][7][13]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses the masculine νῶτος.^[6][13]
• Modern Greek – The plural survives as the learned word νώτα (nóta), the back.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The back of a person or animal; often plural for singular.^[6][7]
2. The chine, the back of an animal cut off as meat.^[6][7]
3. κατὰ νώτου: behind someone's back; in the rear of an army.^[6][7]
4. (figurative, usually plural) A broad surface: of the sea, the earth, the sky; the top ridge of a mountain.^[6][7]

Word family

• νωτιαῖος (nōtiaîos)
• νωτίζω (nōtízō)
• νωτοφόρος (nōtophóros)
• ποικιλόνωτος (poikilónōtos)
• νωτοπλήξ (nōtoplḗx)
• νωτοστροφέω (nōtostrophéō)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c 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 Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
9. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
12. ^ Slater, William J. (1969), Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: De Gruyter
13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge