πέλλα

Forms

πέλλᾰ (pélla) f (genitive πέλλης); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Beekes tentatively considers it Pre-Greek, following Furnée, who points to the wavering between -ικ- and -υκ- and between -λ- and -λλ- in the word and its relatives.^[2][1] Beekes finds the old comparison with Latin pēlvis (“bowl, basin”) and Sanskrit पालवी (pālavī, “a kind of vessel”) or पारी (pārī, “milk pail”) unconvincing, since it leads to no Indo-European reconstruction.^[2] Frisk had taken those words to point to a starting form *πέλϝιᾰ (*pélwia) (shortened from *πηλϝιᾰ (*pēlwia)), or to a simpler *πέλιᾰ (*pélia) beside the Sanskrit milk pail, and Kretschmer proposed *πελνᾱ (*pelnā).^[3] Chantraine finds the comparison with the word for a basin doubtful, and the one with the Sanskrit vessel more doubtful still.^[4] Kroonen, on the other hand, derives it from Proto-Indo-European *pel(w)- (“vessel”) and connects Proto-Germanic *fullą (“cup, beaker”).^[1]

The parallel form πέλιξ (pélix, “cup, jug”) is probably already Mycenaean: Chantraine, after Chadwick, reads Mycenaean Greek pe-ri-ke in a list of vessels as its plural.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the Iliad (16.642), of the milk-pails in a farmstead, round which flies buzz in spring.^[5][6][7] Its exact sense in Homer has been debated.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the milk pail, which was probably wooden, the word was used for a drinking bowl or cup: Hipponax has it in that sense, and Athenaeus says that the Thessalians and the Aeolians called a drinking cup so.^[4][6][8] Theocritus and Nicander keep the Homeric pail.^[6][8] Ionic had the form πέλλη (péllē).^[6][8]

Around it stands a group of vessel names: the derivative πελλίς (pellís), a drinking cup in Hipponax and Hellenistic poetry, and the parallel forms πέλιξ (pélix), glossed as a cup or a small jug in Cratinus, πελίκη (pelíkē) and πελίχνη (pelíkhnē), a cup in Alcman.^[4][3][2]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for a milk pail.^[5][6]
• 6th century BC – Hipponax uses it for a drinking cup, and its derivative πελλίς (pellís) in the same sense.^[6][4]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses it for a milk pail.^[6][8]
• 2nd century BC – Nicander uses it for a milk pail.^[6][4]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Athenaeus describes it as a cup-like vessel with a broad base, into which milk was drawn.^[9][4]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius records a separate πέλλα meaning “stone”.^[10][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wooden bowl for milking, a milk-pail.^[6][8]
2. A pail or bowl used for drinking, a cup.^[8][6]

Word family

• πελλίς (pellís)
• πέλιξ (pélix)
• πελίκη (pelíkē)
• πελίχνη (pelíkhnē)

Usage notes

Hesychius glosses another πέλλα as “stone”, a sense that LSJ also takes from a scholion.^[10][6] Beekes treats it as a separate Pre-Greek word, perhaps the same as the name of the Macedonian town Πέλλα (Pélla).^[2][11] Since Fick it has been traced to a form *pelsā and compared with Old High German felis (“rock”) and Sanskrit पाषाण (pāṣāṇá, “stone”), but the variation between *pelso- and *peliso- does not look Indo-European, and Furnée compares φελλεύς (phelleús, “stony ground”), whose different first consonant points to Pre-Greek.^[2][4][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 c d e Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli
8. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
10. ^ a b Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
11. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill