Etymologically
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ποιητής

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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]

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