Etymologically
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πλάζω

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pláz.dɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈpla.zo/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈpla.zo/[1]

Forms

πλᾰ́ζω (plázō) [1]

Etymology

It is usually traced as *πλάγγ-ι̯ω (*pláng-i̯ō): inherited from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂g- (“to strike”), with Latin plangō (“to beat (the breast), lament”) and Proto-Germanic *flōkaną (“to beat, lament”).[2][3][1] Frisk points out that the aorist πλάγξαι (plánxai) and πλαγκτός (planktós) agree in form with the perfect and past participle of the Latin verb.[2]

Beekes finds this difficult: the short ⟨α⟩ is unexpected, since *pl̥h₂g- should have given ⟨πληγ-⟩; it could have spread from nasal forms shortened by Osthoff's law.[2][1] The Latin verb also means “beat the breast, lament”, and the sense “drive off course” does not obviously come from “beat”.[2][1] He thinks the Latin word belongs rather with πλήσσω (plḗssō, “to strike”), and that it and πλάζω influenced each other in form and sense; he mentions van Beek's suggestion that πλάζω is Pre-Greek and related to ἀμπλακίσκω (amplakískō, “to miss, fail”).[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it means to drive someone off course, as a god drives a man away from his homeland, and in the passive to wander: the first lines of the Odyssey tell of the man who “wandered” far.[4][5][6] In two Homeric passages it is used of a wave beating on a man's shoulders.[4][5]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic verb, rare in prose and absent from comedy and correct Attic prose.[5] Besides “to turn aside” it meant to baffle or bewilder: in the Iliad a leader complains that the foreign allies thwart him, and Pindar uses the passive of drinkers growing confused.[5][4] Herodotus and Euripides use the passive of people driven off course or straying from a road.[6][5]

Its derivatives include πλαγκτός (planktós) “wandering, bewildered” and the Πλαγκταί, the Wandering Rocks of the Odyssey.[2][7] In a Timaean treatise the planets are “the wanderers”, οἱ πλαζόμενοι.[5]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for driving off course and, in the passive, for wandering.[4][5]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses the passive of drinkers becoming bewildered.[5][8]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus and Euripides use the passive of being driven off course.[6][8]
  • 2nd century AD – An inscription from Maeonia uses it of straying pigs.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To turn aside, drive off course.[5][6]
  2. To baffle, thwart; to bewilder.[5][4]
  3. (of a wave) To strike, beat upon.[6][4]
  4. (passive) To go astray, stray from something.[5][6]
  5. (passive) To wander, roam.[5][6]
  6. (passive) To be deprived of something, in Aeschylus.[5]

Word family

  • παλιμπλάζομαι (palimplázomai)
  • παραπλάζω (paraplázō)
  • πλαγκτός (planktós)
  • πλαγκτύς (planktús)
  • ἀποπλάζω (apoplázō)

Usage notes

Aristarchus took the Homeric πλάζω “strike (of waves)” as a dialect form of πλήσσω (plḗssō), and LSJ thinks the sense “bewilder” may belong to another word.[5] A separate πλάζω is recorded as the Tarentine form of πλάσσω (plássō) “to mould”.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
  4. ^ a b c d e f Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge