οἰκία

Forms

οἰκῐ́ᾱ (oikíā) f (genitive οἰκῐ́ᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house”) + -ία (-íā),^[2][3] or, in Wiktionary's analysis, from the verb οἰκέω (oikéō, “to dwell”) with the same suffix.^[1] Cretan and Locrian have ϝοικία (woikía), with the initial /w/.^[4][2] The Homeric neuter plural of the same shape, “dwellings”, matches a Sanskrit word for “house, village” in form, but Beekes, following Schindler, takes the two as separate innovations.^[2]

The base noun goes back to Proto-Hellenic *wóikos, from Proto-Indo-European *wóyḱos (“settlement”),^[1][2] which Beekes takes as an action noun, “settlement”, from a verb meaning “to sit down, settle, enter”.^[2] Cognate with Mycenaean Greek wo-ko, Latin vīcus (“village, quarter”), Sanskrit वेश (veśá, “house”) and Gothic 𐍅𐌴𐌹𐌷𐍃 (weihs, “village”).^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer has only the neuter plural τὰ οἰκία, dwellings, also of the nests of wasps, bees and an eagle.^[2][5] The feminine singular, a dwelling or house, appears first in the iambic poets Archilochus and Semonides.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Herodotus, Thucydides and Attic prose it is the ordinary word for a house, much more frequent in comedy and prose than οἶκος (oîkos).^[4][5] Attic law distinguished the two: οἶκος was the whole estate a man left, οἰκία only the dwelling-house, as Xenophon states.^[4] It also means the household or domestic establishment (Plato, Demosthenes), which Aristotle treats as more primitive than the city, and the family a person descends from (Herodotus, Thucydides).^[4][5]

In the New Testament it is a house as a building and the household living in it.^[6]

Vernacular Greek of 1100–1669 had it as a learned word, and Modern Greek οικία (oikía) is a formal, learned word for a residence.^[7][8]

Timeline

• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses the feminine for a house.^[5]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use it for a house, a household and a family.^[5][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon distinguishes it, as the dwelling, from οἶκος (oîkos), the whole estate.^[4]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle calls the household more primitive than the city.^[4]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for a house and its household.^[6]
• Modern Greek – οικία (oikía) is a learned word for a residence.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building, house, dwelling.^[4][5][6]
2. (Attic law) The dwelling-house only, as against the whole estate.^[4]
3. One's own apartments, as against those let out to lodgers.^[4]
4. A household, domestic establishment.^[4][5][6]
5. A family, line of descent.^[5]

Related words

• οἶκος (oîkos)
• οἰκέω (oikéō)
• οἰκέτης (oikétēs)
• Latin vīcus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ a b c d Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
7. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki