Etymologically
Log in

πλίνθος

This is an old revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 25 October 2026 at 01:52. It may differ significantly from the current version. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Current version Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /plín.tʰos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈplin.θos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈplin.θos/[1]

Forms

πλίνθος (plínthos) f (genitive πλίνθου); second declension[1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it a loan from Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, because it belongs to the field of building and has the notoriously foreign element -ινθος (-inthos).[2][3] Chantraine and Frisk likewise call it a technical term of brick-building that, like κέραμος (kéramos), is strongly suspected of being borrowed from a substrate.[4][5] Frisk lists Indo-European and “Pelasgian” proposals, among them a link with πηλός (pēlós, “clay”).[4][5]

Rosół counts it among the Semitic loanwords, from Akkadian libittu (“brick, mud brick”), which has a match in Ugaritic.[6] Babiniotis also allows a Semitic loan or a Pre-Greek word.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is in Alcaeus, in the sense of a brick.[8][9][7]

Semantic evolution

In Herodotus and Thucydides it is the brick, sun-dried or baked: Herodotus describes the baked bricks of Babylon, a technique the Greeks regarded as foreign, and uses the word of brick as a material.[8][9] Aristophanes mentions bricks laid on a victim in torture, and “to wash a brick” was a proverb for wasted effort.[8][9]

From the shape it came to mean any brick-shaped body: a squared building stone, an ingot of gold or silver (Polybius), a plate of metal let into a threshold, and the plinth of a column.[8] Through Latin plinthus and French it gave English plinth in the 17th century.[10]

The word survives as the learned Modern Greek πλίνθος (plínthos).[11] medieval Greek also had a form πλίθος.[11][12][7]

Timeline

  • 7th–6th century BC – Alcaeus uses it for a brick.[8][9][13]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus describes the baked bricks of Babylon.[8][9][13]
  • 4th century BC – Inscriptions at Delphi and Epidaurus use it for metal plates in a threshold.[8]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it for ingots of gold and silver.[8][9][13]
  • 1610s – English borrows plinth from French and Latin.[10]
  • Modern Greek – It survives as the learned word πλίνθος.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A brick, sun-dried or baked; brick as a material.[8][9]
  2. A squared building stone.[8]
  3. An ingot of gold, silver or lead; a metal plate set in a threshold.[8][9]
  4. (architecture) The plinth of a column.[8]

Word family

  • πλινθεύω (plintheúō)
  • πλινθηδόν (plinthēdón)
  • πλίνθινος (plínthinos)
  • πλινθίον (plinthíon)
  • πλινθουργέω (plinthourgéō)
  • πλινθουργός (plinthourgós)
  • πλινθοφορέω (plinthophoréō)
  • πλινθυφής (plinthuphḗs)
  • Latin plinthus
  • English plinth

Usage notes

“To wash a brick” was a proverb for useless trouble.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  6. ^ Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
  7. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  12. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge