περίοδος

Forms

περῐ́οδος (períodos) f (genitive περῐόδου); second declension^[1] Doric πέροδος.^[2] LSJ also gives a masculine ὁ περίοδος “patrol”.^[2]

Etymology

It is a compound from Ancient Greek περί (perí, “around”) + ὁδός (hodós, “way, road”), literally “a going round”.^[1][3][4] Babiniotis compares the other compounds of ὁδός (hodós) such as δίοδος (díodos) and πάροδος (párodos).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pindar speaks of the cycles of years, and Herodotus uses it of the Persians' flank march round Thermopylae, of the way round a lake and of the circuit of a wall.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

From “going round” the word took two lines of meaning: the space gone round (a circuit, a circumference, and in Herodotus and Aristophanes a map of the whole earth) and the time it takes to come back to the start, a cycle.^[2][3] Plato has it of long periods of time, Aristotle of the menstrual period, and the doctors of the recurring fits of a fever.^[2][3] The four great athletic festivals formed a period, and a victor in all of them had “won the period”.^[2] Xenophon uses it of the orbit of a heavenly body, and Aristotle defines the rhetorical period as a self-contained stretch of speech that the mind can take in at once.^[2][3]

It passed into Latin as periodus, whence the English word period.^[5][4] Medieval vernacular Greek kept it, and Modern Greek περίοδος (períodos), a learned form, is above all a stretch of time marked by particular events, an era.^[6][7]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it of the cycles of years.^[2]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of a flank march, a circumference and a map of the earth.^[2][3]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it for long periods of time.^[2][3]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle defines the rhetorical period and uses the word of menstruation.^[2][3]
• 4th century BC – Aeneas Tacticus uses the masculine for a patrol.^[2]
• Early 15th century – English takes period from Latin and French.^[4]
• Modern Greek – The learned περίοδος (períodos) is the ordinary word for a period of time.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A going round; a flank march.^[2]
2. A way round; a circuit or circumference.^[2]
3. A map or description of the earth.^[2]
4. A cycle or period of time; the cycle of the four great games.^[2][3]
5. The periodic recurrence of events.^[2]
6. (medicine) A course of life; the menstrual period; a fit of intermittent fever.^[2]
7. The orbit or revolution of a heavenly body.^[2]
8. A course at dinner.^[2]
9. (rhetoric) A period, a complete sentence; also a unit in music and metre.^[2]
10. (masculine) One who goes the rounds, a patrol.^[2]

Related words

• ὁδός (hodós)
• Latin periodus
• English period

Usage notes

Hesychius lists its uses: a recurring time, a cycle, the period of speech, a description of the earth, the order of the ages and a medical term.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v 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 Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
6. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
7. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)