Etymologically
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πλάτανος

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /plá.ta.nos/[1]
  • IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈpla.ta.nos/[1]
  • IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈpla.ta.nos/[1]

Forms

πλᾰ́τᾰνος (plátanos) f (genitive πλᾰτᾰ́νου); second declension[1]

Etymology

It has traditionally been derived from πλατύς (platús, “broad”), the tree being named after its broad leaves or its flat patches of bark.[2][1] Beekes rejects this because the oldest form, πλατάνιστος (platánistos), is opaque in formation, and assumes that the name of this Asiatic and south-east European tree was borrowed from Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, and only later associated with πλατύς (platús).[2][3][1] A proposed Arabic source is rejected by Rosół.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The older form πλατάνιστος (platánistos) is in the Iliad (2.307), Herodotus and Theocritus.[2][3] Πλάτανος itself first appears in Aristophanes (Knights 528).[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Aristophanes, Plato, Xenophon and Theophrastus use it for the plane tree; it is in Plato's Phaedrus (229a).[6][5][2] Its derivatives include πλατανών (platanṓn) “plane grove”.[2]

Latin borrowed it as platanus.[7][1] Medieval and Modern Greek ο πλάτανος became masculine, after the other nouns in -ος.[8][9]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad has the older form πλατάνιστος.[2]
  • 5th century BC – Aristophanes uses πλάτανος.[5][2]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato and Xenophon use it.[6][5][10]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it.[2][10]
  • Modern Greek – πλάτανος is masculine.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The plane tree, Platanus orientalis.[6][1]

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 g h i 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
  5. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  6. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  8. ^ 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
  10. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge