οἴκαδε

Forms

οἴκαδε (oíkade) ^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house, home”) + -δε (-de), the suffix of direction “to, towards”.^[1][2][3] Babiniotis suggests that its stem is that of a collective neuter plural, as in Ἀθήναζε (Athḗnāze, “to Athens”).^[3] A Delphic inscription spells it with the old initial digamma, ϝοίκαδε (woíkade).^[4] It has the same meaning as Homer's οἶκόνδε (oîkónde).^[4][5]

The noun is *wóyḱos, from a root meaning “to settle”; it is cognate with Latin vīcus (“village”) and Sanskrit वेश (véśa, “house”).^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it means “home, homewards”, of going back to one's house or country: the Greeks at Troy long to sail home.^[5][4][8]

Semantic evolution

The adverb is frequent in Homer, Pindar, tragedy, comedy and Attic prose, always of going home.^[4][9] It could also mean “to other people's houses” (the comic poet Teleclides).^[4] Xenophon and later writers such as Lucian also use it for being at home, as οἴκοι (oíkoi), and Xenophon speaks of longing for “the things at home”.^[4][2]

Ammonius distinguishes it from εἰς οἶκον “into a house”: οἴκαδε is going to one's own house, while εἰς οἶκον can be said of anyone else's.^[10] Photius and the Segueriana gloss it as “to one's own things”.^[11][12] Modern Greek keeps it as a learned adverb, “homeward”.^[3]

Timeline

• 700s BC – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it often for going home.^[5][8]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it in the Works and Days.^[8][13]
• 5th century BC – It is common in Pindar, tragedy and Aristophanes.^[4][9]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it also for “at home”.^[4][2]
• 2nd century AD – Lucian uses it for “at home”.^[4][13]

Meanings

Adverb

1. To one's house or homeland, homeward, home.^[9][4][5]
2. To other people's houses.^[4]
3. At home, like οἴκοι (oíkoi).^[4][2]

Related words

• οἶκος (oîkos)
• οἶκόνδε (oîkónde)
• οἴκοι (oíkoi)

Usage notes

Aristophanes has a dialect form οἴκαδις (oíkadis).^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
3. ^ a b c 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 l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ 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
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
10. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
11. ^ Photius, Lexicon, ed. Christos Theodoridis, vol. 1 (Α–Δ) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982); ed. Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1822)
12. ^ Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck
13. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge