πλάσμα

Forms

πλᾰ́σμᾰ (plásma) n (genitive πλᾰ́σμᾰτος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek πλάσσω (plássō, “to form, mould”) + -μα (-ma).^[1][2][3] Pokorny places the verb under the root Proto-Indo-European *pelə- (“wide and flat”), as a present in -dh- meaning “to shape out of a soft mass”,^[4] and Etymonline gives its original sense as “to spread thin”.^[5]

Latin borrowed it as plasma,^[6] and through Late Latin into English.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest text with the word is a poem of Xenophanes (6th–5th century BC), which dismisses certain stories as πλάσματα τῶν προτέρων, “fictions of the men of old”.^[7][8][9] Aristophanes speaks of men as πλάσματα πηλοῦ, “figures moulded of clay”.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

The word meant first a thing formed or moulded: Plato compares the mind to a piece of wax-work, Menander uses it of figures made by bakers, and a 3rd-century AD papyrus of cakes of incense.^[7][8] From “something made up” it came to mean a fiction or invention: Demosthenes calls a will a forgery, and later critics such as Sextus Empiricus set the fictitious but possible story apart from history and myth.^[7][8] It also meant pretence and delusion (Hyperides, Philodemus, Plutarch), a studied style in speaking or writing, and in music an affected way of playing, with trills and falsetto (Theophrastus), or the studied intonation of an orator (Plutarch).^[7][8]

In the Septuagint and the New Testament it is the creature as formed by God, as clay is by the potter: the Letter to the Romans asks whether the thing moulded can say to its moulder “why did you make me so?”, echoing Isaiah.^[10][2][3] A magical papyrus uses it of the human body as fashioned by the Creator.^[7]

Medieval vernacular Greek used it for a made thing, a made-up tale and a trick.^[11] In Modern Greek πλάσμα (plásma) is any living creature, a person (“a lovely creature”), and a figment of the imagination, the sense “fiction” being a semantic loan from French; the physiological sense “blood plasma” is a separate learned borrowing from German.^[12][13] English took plasma in 1712 in the sense “form, shape”; the sense “liquid part of the blood” dates from 1845, and the physicist's ionized gas from 1928.^[5]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Xenophanes calls old stories “fictions of the men of old”.^[7][8][9]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it of figures moulded of clay, and Plato of a wax-work.^[7][8][9]
• 4th century BC – Demosthenes calls a will a forgery, and Hyperides uses it of pretence.^[7][8][9]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it of affected flute-playing.^[7][9]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it of pretence and of an orator's studied intonation.^[7][8][9]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Sextus Empiricus sets the invented but possible story apart from history and myth.^[7][9]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts use it for a made thing, a made-up story and a trick.^[11]
• 1712 – The English word plasma is first recorded, meaning “form, shape”.^[5]
• Modern Greek – The word means a creature, a person and a figment of the imagination.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Anything moulded or formed: a figure, image, artefact.^[7][8]
2. (Koine) A creature or the human body, as formed by God.^[7][10][2]
3. A figment, fiction, invention; a forgery.^[7][8]
4. Pretence, deception; a delusion.^[7][8]
5. (rhetoric) A formed or studied style of speaking or writing.^[7]
6. (music) Affected execution; a studied modulation of the voice.^[7][8]

Related words

• Latin plasma
• English plasma

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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
3. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
10. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
11. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος