πνεύμων

Forms

πνεύμων (pneúmōn) m (genitive πνεύμονος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek πλεύμων (pleúmōn, “lung”), the older and originally Attic form, reshaped after πνέω (pnéō, “to breathe, blow”) and πνεῦμα (pneûma, “breath”).^[2][3][4][1] The manuscripts mostly have the spelling with ⟨ν⟩, but the best manuscripts of Aeschylus and Sophocles and a 4th-century BC inscription from Epidaurus have the one with ⟨λ⟩, and LSJ and Chantraine take the change to follow a derivation from the word for breath that Aristotle suggested.^[5][4]

The older form goes back to Proto-Hellenic *pléwmōn, from Proto-Indo-European *pléwmō, formed on the root *pleu- of πλέω (pléō, “to sail, float”): the lung is the “floater”, which stays on the surface when the organs of a slaughtered animal are thrown into water.^[1][3][4] Beekes calls the link with that verb only possible.^[2] Cognate with Sanskrit क्लोमन् (klóman, “right lung”), with /p/ dissimilated to /k/ before /m/, and Latin pulmō (“lung”), from a zero-grade form, though each correspondence has minor irregularities.^[2][4][3] Balto-Slavic has a different formation from the same root: Lithuanian plaũčiai (“lungs”) and Old Church Slavonic плюща (pljušta).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad a bronze spear point sticks fast in a lung (4.528).^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

It is mostly plural, “the lungs”, from Archilochus and Alcaeus on, and the lungs count as the most vital part, and even as the seat of love in a fragment of Sophocles.^[5][2] Plato's Timaeus calls the lung the steward of the breath.^[5] In medicine it gave περιπλευμονία (peripleumoníā, “pneumonia”), used by the Ionic and Attic writers.^[2][4] Plato and Aristotle also use it for the jellyfish, and Epicurus called his rival Nausiphanes a “jellyfish”.^[5][2]

Coptic borrowed the word, recorded from about AD 350.^[7] Medieval vernacular Greek has it as πνεύμων, with the forms πλέμων and φλέγμων (after φλέγμα), also for an inflammation of the lungs.^[8] Modern Greek uses the learned πνεύμονας (pnévmonas), while dialect πλεμόνι continues the form with ⟨λ⟩.^[9][8] English pneumo-, “lung”, is taken from it.^[10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for the lung of a wounded warrior.^[6][5]
• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses the plural for the lungs.^[5][11]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles makes the lungs the seat of love, and the Hippocratic writers use the word in medicine.^[5][12][11]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato calls the lung the steward of the breath and uses the word for the jellyfish.^[5][11]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle connects the lung with breath, the derivation that the spelling with ⟨ν⟩ follows.^[5][4][11]
• About AD 350 – A Sahidic Coptic text has the borrowed word.^[7]
• 12th–17th century – Vernacular texts use it also for an inflammation of the lungs.^[8]
• Modern Greek – It survives as the learned πνεύμονας (pnévmonas).^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The lung; usually in the plural, the lungs.^[5][13][2]
2. A jellyfish, sea-lung.^[5][2][13]
3. (Byzantine) Inflammation of the lungs.^[8]

Word family

• πλευμονία (pleumoníā)
• περιπλευμονία (peripleumoníā)
• πλευμονώδης (pleumonṓdēs)
• πνευμόνιον (pneumónion)

Related words

• πνεῦμα (pneûma)
• πνέω (pnéō)
• Latin pulmo
• English pneumonia

Usage notes

Ancient grammarians, Moeris, Photius and Eustathius among them, recognised the form with ⟨λ⟩ as both the Homeric and the true Attic one.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f 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 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
6. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
8. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
12. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
13. ^ a b Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press