πεντήκοντα

Forms

πεντήκοντᾰ (pentḗkonta) (ordinal πεντηκοστός, adverbial πεντηκοντᾰ́κῐς)^[1] Boeotian πεντείκοντα (penteíkonta), in Corinna.^[2][3] Indeclinable, but a genitive plural πεντηκόντων is found in an inscription from Chios of the 5th century BC.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *penkʷēḱomth₂ (“fifty”), from an earlier *pénkʷedḱomt, “five tens”.^[1] The first part is the word for “five”, πέντε (pénte).^[4][5] The second part, ⟨-κοντα⟩, also forms the other tens, as in ἑξήκοντα (hexḗkonta).^[5]

The long vowel before it is also found in Sanskrit पञ्चाशत् (pañcāśát) and Old Armenian յիսուն (yisun).^[4][5] Beekes, following Kortlandt, explains it by the loss of the *d of *dḱomt-.^[4] Latin quīnquāgintā has a similar long vowel, perhaps after the word for “forty”.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on, meaning “fifty”; the first passage LSJ cites is Iliad 2.509.^[2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

It is the ordinary word for “fifty” throughout Ancient Greek, in Homer, Hesiod and Classical prose, in the Septuagint and in the New Testament, where it also occurs in the phrase κατὰ πεντήκοντα, “in groups of fifty”.^[3][6][7]

Medieval vernacular Greek had the shortened forms πενήντα (penínta) and πεντήντα, the second also in the Greek dialects of southern Italy.^[8] Modern Greek counts with πενήντα (penínta) and uses πεντήκοντα (pendíkonda) only as a learned word.^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for “fifty”.^[2][6]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it in the Theogony and the Works and Days.^[6]
• 6th–5th century BC – Corinna writes the Boeotian form.^[2][3]
• 5th century BC – An inscription from Chios declines it in the genitive plural.^[2]
• 1100–1669 – Medieval vernacular Greek uses the shortened form πενήντα (penínta).^[8]
• Modern Greek – The ancient form survives only as a learned word.^[9]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Fifty.^[2][3][7]

Related words

• πέντε (pénte)
• πεντηκόντορος (pentēkóntoros)
• Latin quīnquāgintā

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d 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 Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
6. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b 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
8. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki