Etymologically
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πέρθω

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pér.tʰɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈper.θo/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈper.θo/[1]

Forms

πέρθω (pérthō) [1]

Etymology

The etymology is unknown, though the family has an Indo-European shape: a present πέρθω, an aorist ἔπρᾰθον (éprathon) and an iterative πορθέω (porthéō).[2][3] Janda and the LIV propose that it is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerdʰ- (“to take as booty”), perhaps an old compound of a noun from *bʰer- with *dʰeh₁- (“to put”), meaning “to make booty”.[3][4] Beekes finds no convincing etymology.[3][4] Wiktionary also allows a root of the same shape meaning “to cut, hew”.[1]

The aorist ἔπραθον has the zero grade of the root.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is used only of towns: to sack and ravage a city, as in the opening of the Odyssey, where Odysseus sacked holy Troy.[5][6] The passive is used of a city being destroyed.[5][7]

Semantic evolution

It remained a poetic verb.[5] Pindar and the tragedians extended it from cities to people, armies and monsters, and to other things that are destroyed: Aeschylus has a mourner tear his beard, and Sophocles uses it of cutting olive leaves.[5][7] In the Iliad it also means to get by plunder, of what was taken at the sack of a town.[5]

Prose used instead the compounds and the iterative πορθέω (porthéō).[5] The epithet πτολίπορθος (ptolíporthos), “sacker of cities”, belongs to the same family.[1]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it of sacking towns.[5][6]
  • Before the 6th century BC – The Shield ascribed to Hesiod has the aorist infinitive πραθέειν.[6][8]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it of destroying an army.[5][8]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it of destroying people and cutting leaves.[5][8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To sack or ravage a city.[5][7]
  2. To destroy or slay people, an army, beasts.[5][7]
  3. To destroy or tear things, such as a beard or leaves.[5][7]
  4. To get by plunder at the sack of a town.[5]

Word family

  • διαπέρθω (diapérthō)
  • ἐκπέρθω (ekpérthō)
  • πέρσις (pérsis)
  • πορθέω (porthéō)
  • πτολίπορθος (ptolíporthos)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  7. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  8. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge