Etymologically
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πίτυς

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pí.tys/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈpi.tys/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈpi.tys/[1]

Forms

πῐ́τῠς (pítus) f (genitive πῐ́τῠος); third declension[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.[2] The word resembles Latin pīnus (“pine”) and Albanian pishë (“pine, fir”), both of unclear original form, and on the other hand the tree name Sanskrit पीतुदारु (pī́tudāru-).[2][3] The traditional explanation derives them from Proto-Indo-European *peyH-, but Beekes does not commit himself to any derivation.[1][2] Benveniste criticized the habit of lumping together similar-sounding words that differ in meaning, such as πίων (píōn, “fat”), πίνω (pínō, “to drink”) and πίτυς.[2] Frisk agrees, and calls any further analysis quite uncertain.[2][3] Babiniotis likewise rules out a link with the verb to drink.[4]

Furnée compared the place name Πισύη, also written Πιτύη, and concluded that the word is Pre-Greek, a view Beekes finds not very certain.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is a tall pine felled in the mountains by shipwrights, and pines and oaks grow round the Cyclops' cave in the Odyssey.[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Herodotus records the phrase “like a pine”, meaning to destroy utterly, root and branch, because a felled pine was believed not to grow again.[6][5] Theophrastus and later botanical writers use it for several kinds of pine, among them the Aleppo pine and the stone pine.[5][7] A wreath of pine was the prize at the Isthmian Games, and its wood, bark, needles and cones were used in shipbuilding and medicine.[7][5] Myth made Pitys a nymph loved by Pan and turned into a stone pine.[7]

Babiniotis lists the word as ancient, meaning the stone pine.[4]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey name the pine.[5][8]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus has the phrase “like a pine” for total destruction.[6][9]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus distinguishes several kinds of pine.[5][9]
  • 1st century AD – Dioscorides describes the medical uses of the pine.[5][7][9]
  • 2nd century AD – Pausanias uses it for the wild and the cultivated pine.[5][9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A Pine tree, especially the Corsican pine; also the Aleppo pine and the stone pine.[5][6]
  2. (in the phrase “like a pine”) Utterly, root and branch.[6][5]

Word family

  • πιτύϊνος (pitúïnos)
  • πιτυώδης (pituṓdēs)
  • πιτυΐς (pituḯs)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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 Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b c d Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
  8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge