πλατεῖα

Forms

πλᾰτεῖᾰ (plateîa) f (genitive πλᾰτείᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “broad, flat”), the adjective's feminine used as a noun: for “street” the word ὁδός (hodós, “road”) is understood (“broad road”), and for “flat of the hand” the word χείρ (kheír, “hand”).^[2][3][4] The adjective goes back through Proto-Hellenic *plətús to Proto-Indo-European *pléth₂us, from a root *pleth₂- (“flat”).^[1] Beekes compares the Sanskrit and Avestan words for “wide”, and Old Irish lethan (“broad”) and Middle Welsh llydan (“broad”), which have another suffix.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest use is “flat of the hand”: Aristophanes' Frogs has a man being struck with flat hands.^[2][6][7] The sense “broad street” is found in the Rhesus attributed to Euripides.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Hellenistic and Roman Greek it is the usual word for a main street, in comedy (Philemon), Herodas, Diodorus, Strabo, Plutarch and inscriptions, where it can name a street of tradesmen or a guild.^[2][3] Polybius already uses it of a wide open space in a city.^[4] In inscriptions from Delos it is a kind of dish or cup, and in Demetrius a broad stripe or border.^[2] The Septuagint and the New Testament use it for the streets of a town.^[2][3]

It was borrowed as Latin platea.^[8][9] Coptic took it as ⲡⲗⲁⲧⲉⲓⲁ (plateia), recorded from about AD 300 in several dialects.^[10]

Modern Greek πλατεία (plateía) means a town square, a sense taken from French place, itself from Latin platea; its sense of the stalls in a theatre comes from Italian platea.^[9][4]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the flat of the hand.^[2][7]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Philemon uses it for a street.^[2][7]
• 3rd century BC – Inscriptions from Delos use it for a kind of dish or cup.^[2]
• 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it of a wide open space.^[4][7]
• 1st century BC – Diodorus uses it for a broad street.^[2][3][7]
• About AD 300 – It is first recorded as a loanword in Coptic.^[10]
• Modern Greek – πλατεία (plateía) means a square, a sense modelled on French place.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A broad street, a main street.^[2][3][1]
2. An open space in a town, a square.^[1][4]
3. The flat of the hand.^[2][1]
4. A kind of dish or cup.^[2]
5. A broad stripe or border.^[2]

Related words

• πλατύς (platús)
• πλάτος (plátos)
• πλάτη (plátē)
• Latin platea

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 j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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
4. ^ a b c d e Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig