παροικία

Forms

πᾰροικῐ́ᾱ (paroikíā) f (genitive πᾰροικῐ́ᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

From πάροικος (pároikos, “dwelling beside; resident alien”) (or its verb παροικέω (paroikéō, “to dwell beside, to sojourn”)) with the abstract suffix -ία.^[2][3][4] The base is a compound of παρά (pará, “beside”) and οἶκος (oîkos, “house”).^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first found in the Septuagint, for a stay in a foreign land: the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, the exiles in Ezra, and, figuratively, the life of the psalmist as a stranger on earth.^[7][8][3]

Semantic evolution

In the Septuagint it renders Hebrew words for sojourning and exile.^[8][7] The New Testament uses it both of the Israelites' stay in Egypt (Acts) and of a Christian's life on earth, a time spent far from the heavenly home (1 Peter).^[3][9] Philo already speaks of the soul's sojourn in the body.^[3]

From the idea of Christians as strangers in the world the word came to mean a Christian community in a city: Eusebius speaks of the church at Gortyn and the other “paroikiai” of Crete.^[3][10] In Byzantine Greek it named a church district and then a parish.^[10] Late Latin took it over as paroecia, altered to parochia, the source of Old French paroisse and English parish.^[5]

The learned Modern Greek παροικία (paroikía) is a community of people of one nation living in a foreign city or country, such as the Greek community of London.^[11][10][12]

Timeline

• 3rd–1st century BC – The Septuagint uses it for a sojourn in a foreign land.^[7][13]
• 1st century AD – The Acts of the Apostles and 1 Peter use it of the stay in Egypt and of the Christian life on earth.^[3][8]
• 3rd–4th century AD – Eusebius uses it for the Christian communities of the cities.^[3][10]
• Around 1300 – English parish appears, from the Latin form of the word through French.^[5]
• Modern Greek – The learned παροικία (paroikía) means a community of expatriates.^[11][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sojourn, a stay in a foreign land without the rights of a citizen.^[2][14][3]
2. (figurative) The life of a believer on earth, seen as a stay away from home.^[3][9]
3. The foreign land itself.^[7][3]
4. (Christianity) A Christian community or congregation; later a diocese or parish.^[3][10][15]

Word family

• πάροικος (pároikos)
• παροικέω (paroikéō)

Related words

• οἶκος (oîkos)
• Latin paroecia
• English parish

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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
4. ^ Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch, online ed., https://www.koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
8. ^ a b c Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
9. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
10. ^ a b c d e f Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Ακαδημία Αθηνών (2014), Χρηστικό Λεξικό της Νεοελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Academy of Athens
13. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
14. ^ Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
15. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli