προοίμιον

Forms

προοίμῐον (prooímion) n (genitive προοιμῐ́ου); second declension^[1] Contracted φροίμιον (phroímion) in tragedy.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is a noun made from a phrase meaning “before the song”, from Ancient Greek πρό (pró, “before”) + οἴμη (oímē, “song, lay”).^[4][5] Its first meaning is the start of a song, the introductory chant.^[4]

The origin of οἴμη (oímē) is disputed.^[4] Because οἶμος (oîmos, “path, way”) is sometimes used of songs (“the path of song”), Chantraine and many others take the noun as a word of the bards formed from it.^[6][4] Beekes also gives Bader's view, which separates it from “path” and connects it with the Sanskrit word for “song” and the Old Norse word for a kind of sorcery, from a root Proto-Indo-European *seh₂i- (“to bind”); then the link with the road is a folk etymology.^[4][6] Wiktionary derives the compound directly from the word for “path”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Pindar, for the prelude played on the lyre and for the opening hymn of an epic singer, “the proem of Zeus”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Thucydides and Plato use it for a short hymn of the kind attributed to Homer, such as the hymn to Apollo.^[2][3] From the opening of a song it spread to the opening of any poem or speech: in rhetoric, from Critias and Aristotle on, it is the exordium.^[2][3] In tragedy the contracted φροίμιον (phroímion) is used figuratively of any prelude or beginning, especially of trouble to come, and Euripides calls a scream the prelude to murder.^[2][3] Polybius speaks of the prelude of enmity, and Oribasius uses it of the first symptoms of a disease.^[2]

Latin borrowed it as prooemium.^[4][7] English proem, from the late 14th century, came from it through Latin and Old French.^[8] The word continued through the Middle Ages, and Modern Greek προοίμιο (prooímio) is a learned form meaning a preface or introduction, in the phrase εκ προοιμίου “from the outset”.^[9][10]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for a musical prelude and for the opening hymn of an epic recitation.^[2][3]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses the contracted form figuratively, of a beginning or presage.^[2][3]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides calls a Homeric hymn to Apollo a προοίμιον.^[2][3]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it in rhetoric for the exordium of a speech.^[2]
• Late 14th century – English borrows proem through Latin and Old French.^[8]
• Modern Greek – The learned προοίμιο (prooímio) means a preface.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A prelude on the lyre, an overture.^[2][3]
2. The opening hymn of an epic singer; a short hymn, such as the Homeric hymns.^[2][3]
3. A preamble, an opening; in a speech, the exordium.^[2][3]
4. (figurative) Any prelude or beginning; a presage.^[2][3]
5. (medicine) A first symptom of a disease.^[2]

Related words

• οἴμη (oímē)
• οἶμος (oîmos)
• Latin prooemium
• English proem

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 k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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
5. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ a b 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
7. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki