πτελέα

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /pte.lé.aː/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /pteˈle.a/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /pteˈle.a/^[1]

Forms

πτελέᾱ (pteléā) f (genitive πτελέᾱς); first declension^[1] Mycenaean pte-re-wa, also pe-te-re-wa, a genitive meaning “of elm wood”, at Knossos.^[2][3] Ionic πτελέη.^[3][4] Epidaurian πελέα.^[3]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, following Furnée, who takes it as a variant of μελία (melía, “ash tree”) with the Pre-Greek alternation of a labial stop and /m/; the alternation of ⟨πτ⟩ and ⟨π⟩, as in Epidaurian πελέα (peléa), is also found in Pre-Greek words.^[5][3] The suffix ⟨-έα⟩ is frequent in tree names such as μηλέα (mēléa) and ἰτέα (itéa); the Mycenaean spelling shows that it had a ⟨ϝ⟩ here.^[5][6]

πτέλας (ptélas, “boar”) is close in form, but its meaning is far off.^[5][6] Latin pōpulus (“poplar”) cannot be related, while tilia (“linden”) is phonetically closer; Old Armenian թեղի (tʻełi, “elm”) may have been borrowed from the Greek word, or both may come from a common source, like the Latin word.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest record is Mycenaean, on tablets from Knossos, in a form meaning “of elm wood”.^[2][3] Homer uses it for the elm in the Iliad.^[7][4]

Semantic evolution

Hesiod refers to elm timber, and Aristophanes, Theophrastus and Dioscorides use the word for the tree, which LSJ identifies as the wych elm.^[4][7] In the Shepherd of Hermas the elm supports the vine.^[8]

In medieval Greek the word became Modern Greek φτελιά (fteliá), with the two vowels run together and ⟨πτ⟩ changed to ⟨φτ⟩; this is the ordinary Modern Greek name of the elm, while modern πτελέα (pteléa) is a learned word.^[9][10][11]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – Tablets from Knossos have pte-re-wa “of elm wood”.^[2][3]
• Homer – The Iliad uses it for the elm.^[7][4]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod refers to elm timber.^[4][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes the tree.^[7][12]
• Medieval Greek – The vernacular form φτελιά (fteliá) appears.^[9][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The elm, the wych elm.^[7][4]
2. Elm timber.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Микенско-русский словарь (Mycenaean–Russian dictionary)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d 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
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. ^ a b c d e Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
11. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge