Etymologically
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πτερόν

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pte.rón/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /pteˈron/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /pteˈron/[1]

Forms

πτερόν (pterón) n (genitive πτεροῦ); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *pterón,[1] built on the zero grade of the root of πέτομαι (pétomai) “to fly”, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *pet- (“to fly”).[2][3] Wiktionary gives the Indo-European noun as *péth₂r̥ (“feather”).[1]

The other languages have no exact match of *pt-er-: they continue *petr-, as in Latin accipiter (“hawk”), Old High German fedara (“feather”) and Old Norse fjǫðr (“feather”), and Greek keeps that stem in a phrase of Alcman, “winged dreams”.[2] The English word feather belongs to the same group.[1] Hittite pattar (“wing”) has a heteroclitic stem, and Latin penna (“feather, wing”) an n-stem from the same root.[2] Beekes rejects the old comparison with the Slavic words for “feather”, which belong to another root.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on: in the Iliad a feather and, in the plural, a bird's wings.[4][3] Homer already uses it figuratively of the oars of a ship, “the wings of ships”, and as an image of speed, “swift as a wing or a thought”.[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Lyric and tragic poets gave the wing many images: a god or a parent shelters people under its wings, a song flies on the wings of the Muses, and the victor's crown lends him wings.[3][5] Tragedy uses it of any winged creature, such as the Sphinx, and of a feathered arrow, and Sophocles of an omen read from birds.[3][5] Aeschylus has the proverb of being shot with an arrow feathered from one's own plumes, and Lucian that of priding oneself on borrowed plumes.[3]

Herodotus uses it of the wings of bats, and Aristotle of those of insects.[3] Later it names wing-like things: the side walls of Egyptian temples in Strabo, battlements in Procopius.[3]

Medieval Greek changed /pt/ to /ft/, giving Modern Greek φτερό (fteró), already in Meursius' glossary.[6][7] Modern Greek uses it for a feather and a wing, and as a calque on English wing and French aile in new senses.[7] The scientific prefix English ptero- comes from it.[8]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for feathers and wings, and figuratively for oars.[4][3]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod speaks of the “wings” of a ship.[3][9]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of the wings of bats, and Euripides of a feathered arrow and of the Sphinx.[3][5][9]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it of the wings of insects.[3][9]
  • 1st century BC – 1st century AD – Strabo calls the side walls of Egyptian temples its “wings”.[3][9]
  • 6th century AD – Procopius uses it of battlements.[3][9]
  • Medieval Greek – The form φτερό appears.[6][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A feather; usually in the plural, plumage.[3][5]
  2. A wing of a bird, a bat, an insect, or a winged god or horse; often as an image of speed or protection.[3][5]
  3. (poetic) A winged creature, such as the Sphinx.[3][5]
  4. (poetic) An omen from birds.[3][5]
  5. (figurative) Something that serves as a wing: the oars or sails of a ship; a feathered arrow.[3][5]
  6. A wing-like structure: the side walls of an Egyptian temple; battlements.[3]

Word family

  • κυανόπτερος (kuanópteros)
  • λευκόπτερος (leukópteros)
  • μελανόπτερος (melanópteros)
  • ποικιλόπτερος (poikilópteros)
  • πτερόεις (pteróeis)
  • πτερόω (pteróō)
  • ἄπτερος (ápteros)
  • δίπτερος (dípteros)
  • κολεόπτερος (koleópteros)
  • πτέρινος (ptérinos)
  • ὑμενόπτερος (humenópteros)

Usage notes

Aeschylus says that one never sees the same “feather” of trouble, meaning that it takes many forms, probably with the image of plumage that changes its hue.[3][5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  6. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  7. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  8. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  9. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge