ποιητής

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /poi̯.ɛː.tɛ̌ːs/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /py.iˈtis/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /py.iˈtis/^[1]

Forms

ποιητής (poiētḗs) m (genitive ποιητοῦ); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from ποιέω (poiéō, “to make”) with the agent suffix -τής (-tḗs).^[1] A variant spelling is ποητής (poētḗs).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first recorded uses are in Heraclitus, Herodotus and Thucydides, for poets.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Its original sense was “maker”.^[4] Plato uses it for the maker of objects, such as a god, a carpenter or an artist, and calls the creator “the maker and father of this universe”;^[3][5] Xenophon uses it for the deviser of stratagems, and Plato, disparagingly, for the inventors of gods.^[3] It was also the composer of music, and Isocrates uses it for the author of a speech.^[3] “The poet”, with the article, usually meant Homer (Plato, Aristotle, Polybius).^[3]

Latin borrowed it as poēta, and Russian поэт comes from it.^[6][1] The Christian Creed calls God “maker of heaven and earth”.^[5] Modern Greek ποιητής is a learned word for a poet.^[4]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use it for poets.^[2][3][7]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it for a maker and for a composer of music.^[3][7]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle calls Homer “the poet”.^[3][7]
• Modern Greek – ποιητής means a poet.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A maker, creator; a deviser, inventor.^[3][1]
2. A poet, composer of poems.^[3]
3. A composer of music.^[3][1]
4. The author of a speech.^[3]
5. (with the article) The poet, Homer.^[3]

Related words

• Latin poēta
• English poet

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
5. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
6. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
7. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge