πούς

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /pǔːs/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈpus/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈpus/^[1]

Forms

πούς (poús) m (genitive ποδός); third declension^[1] Doric πώς (pṓs) (in Hesychius) and πός (pós), Laconian πόρ (pór).^[2][3] Mycenaean Greek po-de (dative), and in compounds Mycenaean Greek ti-ri-po “tripod”.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *pṓds (“foot”), the old consonant-stem word for the foot.^[1][2] Beekes sees an old static ablaut between *ped- and *pod-: the o-grade is also in Hittite pāt-, Cuneiform Luwian pāta- and Old Armenian ոտն (otn); a lengthened grade is in Old Norse fótr and Old English fōt; Gothic 𐍆𐍉𐍄𐌿𐍃 (fōtus) was remade as a u-stem; and the e-grade is in Latin pēs, genitive pedis.^[2][4][1] The vowel grade of Sanskrit पद् (pád) cannot be determined.^[2][1]

Greek keeps the e-grade in derivatives such as πέδη (pédē) “fetter”, πεζός (pezós) “on foot”, πέδον (pédon) “ground” and πέδιλον (pédilon) “sandal”, and a zero grade in ἔπιβδα (épibda) “day after a feast”.^[2][4][5] The lengthened nominative survives only in Doric πώς.^[2][4] Doric πός and Homeric τρί-πος were levelled after the oblique cases, and Attic πούς, which recalls δούς (doús), has no certain explanation.^[2][4]

Ancient grammarians derived it from παύω (paúō) “to stop”, because the body ends at the feet, or from πόρος (póros) “passage”.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean tablets have the dative po-de and compounds such as ti-ri-po “tripod”.^[1][2] In Homer it is the foot of men and animals, often with reference to speed: Achilles is πόδας ὠκύς, “swift-footed”, and races are won “with the feet”.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

Already in Homer and Hesiod the word reaches beyond the human foot: a bird's talons, the arms of an octopus, the foot of a mountain, and the sheet of a sail, the rope that holds its lower corner.^[3][8] Many set phrases grew from it: πρὸ ποδός “at one's feet, of immediate concern”, ἐν ποσί “in one's path, everyday”, κατὰ πόδας “at the heels, immediately after”.^[8][3]

From Herodotus on it is also a measure of length, the Greek foot of four palms or sixteen fingers, and in Aristophanes and Plato a metrical foot.^[3][8][9] In the Septuagint it also renders Hebrew idioms, such as “at my foot” for “wherever I go”.^[10] Medieval Greek used it for the foot, the leg, the unit of length, the metrical foot and the legs of furniture.^[11]

In Modern Greek the everyday word is Modern Greek πόδι (pódi), from the diminutive πόδιον (pódion); as a unit, πόδι now also renders the English foot.^[12][6]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – po-de (dative) and ti-ri-po “tripod” on the Linear B tablets.^[1][2]
• Homer – the foot, especially in running; the sheet of a sail.^[7][8]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it for the arms of an octopus.^[3][13]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus measures in feet and mentions a wooden foot.^[3][8][13]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes and Plato use it of the metrical foot.^[8][3][13]
• 5th century AD – Orion derives it from παύω “to stop”.^[6]
• Modern Greek – the ancient diminutive πόδι replaces it in everyday use.^[12][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The foot of a person or animal; a bird's talons; the arms of an octopus.^[8][3]
2. The leg with the foot.^[3][1]
3. The foot in walking, dancing or running, often with reference to speed; ποδί, ποσί “on foot”.^[8][3]
4. (figurative) The foot of something that moves: of time, or the oar of a ship.^[8]
5. In phrases of position and time: “at one's feet”, “in one's path”, “at the heels”, “immediately”.^[8][3]
6. A foot as a unit of length.^[8][3][11]
7. (prosody) A metrical foot.^[8][3]
8. The lowest part of something: the foot of a couch, the foot of a mountain.^[8]
9. (nautical) The sheet of a sail.^[8]

Word family

• ἀελλόπος (aellópos)
• ἄπους (ápous)
• δασύπους (dasúpous)
• ἐμποδών (empodṓn)
• ὀκτώπους (oktṓpous)
• ποδανιπτήρ (podaniptḗr)
• ποδήνεμος (podḗnemos)
• ποδώκης (podṓkēs)
• τρίπους (trípous)
• πόδιον (pódion)
• ἐμποδίζω (empodízō)
• ὑποπόδιον (hupopódion)

Related words

• πέδον (pédon)
• πεζός (pezós)
• πέδη (pédē)
• πέδιλον (pédīlon)
• Latin pēs
• English octopus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 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
4. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
7. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Adler, Ada, ed. (1928–1938), Suidae Lexicon, 5 vols, Leipzig: Teubner
10. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
11. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge