Etymologically
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πλάσσω

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /plás.sɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈplas.so/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈplas.so/[1]

Forms

πλᾰ́σσω (plássō) [1] Attic πλάττω (pláttō).[2][3][4]

Etymology

The whole family rests on a stem πλαθ- (plath-): the present comes from *πλαθ-ι̯ω (*plath-yō), with the same sound change as κορύσσω (korússō), and the other tenses and the nouns were probably built on the same stem.[5][6][2] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Hellenic *plátʰyō.[1] Because the suffix -θ- often forms presents, as in πλήθω (plḗthō) and βρίθω (bríthō), the verb has been explained as an inner-Greek formation of that kind.[2][5][6] Frisk finds no correspondence outside Greek.[6]

Beekes objects that a root Proto-Indo-European *pl̥dʰ- is impossible, since roots could not combine a plain stop with a voiced aspirate, and that the verb shows no trace of the laryngeal of *pelh₂- (“broad, flat”), the root of παλάμη (palámē, “palm of the hand”) and Latin plānus (“flat”); it may have been conflated with the root of πλατύς (platús, “flat”) and Sanskrit पृथु (pṛthú-, “broad”).[2] He thinks it may well be from Pre-Greek, given its lack of an etymology and its anomalous root.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Hesiod's Works and Days a deity moulds a human being out of earth.[3][4][7]

Semantic evolution

The verb is properly the work of an artist in soft materials: clay, wax, dough.[3][4] Herodotus has figurines moulded from dough;[4] Plato sets it against painting, as sculpture to drawing, and speaks of moulding an imaginary city as if from wax.[4][3] Plato also uses it of education, which moulds souls with stories as the hands mould bodies.[3][4] From shaping in the mind it came to mean to imagine and invent, and then to fabricate: slanders, excuses and arguments in the orators and Sophocles, a forged letter in Polybius; the middle means to put on a manner, to feign.[4][3] An inscription from Panamara uses it for plastering a temple.[3]

The Septuagint uses it from Genesis on for forming and moulding, and BDAG notes its use for God's creative work as well as for the making of objects.[8][9] It was borrowed as Latin emplastrum from the derivative ἔμπλαστρον (émplastron), whence Medieval Latin plastrum (“plaster”).[2][2] The modern verb Modern Greek πλάθω (plátho) is a new present made from the aorist ἔπλασα, on the model of Modern Greek κλώθω (klótho) beside ἔκλωσα; it means to knead and shape bread or clay, and figuratively to form.[10]

Timeline

  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of a deity moulding a human being from earth.[3][4]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses the perfect passive of a story that is made up.[3][4]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for figurines of dough;[4] Thucydides uses the middle for composing one's appearance.[4][3]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it for moulding souls by education and for inventing laws and cities.[3][4]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it for forging a letter.[4]
  • Modern Greek – Modern Greek πλάθω (plátho) continues it.[10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To mould, form or shape a soft material such as earth, clay, wax or dough; of gods, to form living beings.[3][4]
  2. To model, as opposed to painting.[3][4]
  3. To patch up, mend (a vessel).[4]
  4. To plaster.[3]
  5. To mould by education or training: the soul, the body, the voice.[3][4]
  6. To form in the mind, imagine, devise.[3][4]
  7. To fabricate, make up (accusations, stories); to forge (a letter, a will); in the middle, to put on, feign.[4][3]

Word family

  • ἀναπλάσσω (anaplássō)
  • ἀποπλάσσομαι (apoplássomai)
  • ἐμπλάσσω (emplássō)
  • ἐπιπλάσσω (epiplássō)
  • ἰπνοπλάθος (ipnopláthos)
  • καταπλάσσω (kataplássō)
  • κοροπλάθος (koropláthos)
  • περιπλάσσω (periplássō)
  • πλάσμα (plásma)
  • πλάστης (plástēs)
  • πλαστικός (plastikós)
  • πλαστός (plastós)
  • συμπλάσσω (sumplássō)
  • ἀμφιπλάσσω (amphiplássō)
  • πλαθά (plathá)
  • πλάθανον (pláthanon)
  • πλάσις (plásis)
  • πλάστρια (plástria)
  • πλάστρον (plástron)
  • Latin emplastrum

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  5. ^ a b 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
  6. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  7. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  8. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki