ποινή

Forms

ποινή (poinḗ) f (genitive ποινῆς); first declension^[1] Doric ποινά.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *kʷoinā́, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoynéh₂ (“payment; punishment, vengeance”).^[1] Frisk and Chantraine find it identical in form and meaning with Avestan kaēnā “punishment, vengeance”; Lithuanian káina “price, value” and the Slavic word for “price” belong here too, with a different sense.^[3][4] It is an old noun with a nasal suffix, from the verb seen in τίνω (tínō) “to pay, atone”.^[3][4] Its field of meaning is distinct from that of τιμή (timḗ), although the two families sometimes influenced each other.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad it is the blood-price paid by a killer to the kinsmen of the dead man, and two men quarrel over the ποινή for a man who has been killed.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Already in Homer the word widened from blood-money to any requital or vengeance: the Odyssey speaks of requital exacted from the Cyclops for slain comrades, and in the Iliad twelve young men are taken as the ποινή for Patroclus.^[5][2] From Hesiod and Pindar on it is the penalty for a wrong, and in Pindar and Aeschylus also, in a good sense, a reward.^[5][2] Tragedy personified it as Poine, an avenging spirit, often in the plural.^[2][5] It remained rare in prose, where δίκη (díkē) was the usual word.^[5]

It was borrowed as Latin poena, the source of German Pein.^[3] The New Pauly notes that the later Greek use for fines paid to the state and for corporal punishment came back into Greek from the Latin term.^[6] Medieval Greek also had a form υποινή, probably from running the article into the word.^[7] Modern Greek ποινή (poiní) is a learned word for a penalty or sentence.^[8]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for blood-money and requital.^[5][9]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Works and Days uses it for a penalty.^[5][10][11]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar and Aeschylus use it for reward as well as punishment, and Aeschylus personifies it.^[5][2][11]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of satisfaction for a life taken.^[5][11]
• Modern Greek – ποινή (poiní) is the learned word for a penalty or sentence.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Blood-money, wergild: compensation paid by a killer to the kin of the dead.^[5][2]
2. Compensation for a loss; requital, vengeance, revenge.^[2][5]
3. Penalty, punishment for a crime.^[2]
4. (in a good sense) Recompense, reward.^[2][5]
5. Release, redemption.^[5]
6. (personified, usually plural) Spirit of vengeance, avenging Fury.^[2][5]

Related words

• τίνω (tínō)
• Latin poena

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c 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 n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
7. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
11. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge