πτῶσις

Forms

πτῶσῐς (ptôsis) f (genitive πτώσεως); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek πίπτω (píptō, “to fall”) + -σις (-sis),^[1][2] built on the stem ⟨πτω-⟩ of the perfect πέπτωκα (péptōka), as is πτῶμα (ptôma, “fall, corpse”).^[3][2] Beekes traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to fly, to fall”) and finds the alternation of ⟨πετ-⟩ with ⟨πτω-⟩ hard to explain; it may be a Greek innovation.^[2]

The grammatical sense “case” started from the idea of a word “falling” away from its upright form, and Latin translated it as cāsus, the source of the English word case.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plato, in the Republic, is the earliest author in the GLAUx corpus to use it, of the fall of dice.^[6][3][7] Beekes also cites the Hippocratic writings for the sense “fall”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Its plain sense is a fall: of dice, of thunderbolts in Aristotle, of Phaethon in Polybius.^[3][7] Aristotle made it a technical term of grammar for any modification of a word's form: the cases of nouns, but also genders, degrees of adjectives, adverbs and tenses.^[3] The Stoics narrowed it to the cases of the noun, and Chrysippus wrote a treatise on the five cases; the grammarians kept that sense.^[3] In logic Aristotle used it of the moods of syllogisms.^[3]

In the Septuagint it is a calamity, and in the New Testament the collapse of a house built on sand and, figuratively, a downfall: the child Jesus is set “for the fall and rising of many”.^[3][8][7] Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word, also in the form φτώση.^[9] In Modern Greek πτώση (ptósi) is a learned word for a fall of any kind and for grammatical case; some of its senses follow French chute and English fall.^[10]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it of the fall of dice.^[3][7]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it of the inflected forms of words, including the cases of nouns.^[3][2]
• 3rd century BC – Chrysippus writes on the five cases of the noun.^[3]
• 1st century AD – The Gospels use it of the collapse of a house and of a downfall.^[8][7]
• Modern Greek – The learned πτώση (ptósi) means a fall and a grammatical case.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fall, falling; a throw of dice.^[3][7][2]
2. A collapse, a downfall; a calamity.^[3][8][7]
3. (grammar) An inflected form of a word; especially a case of a noun.^[3][7]
4. (logic) The mood of a syllogism; the arrangement of its terms.^[3]
5. (philosophy) A particular instance of a general category.^[7]

Related words

• ἀπόπτωσις (apóptōsis)
• ἔκπτωσις (ékptōsis)
• μετάπτωσις (metáptōsis)
• περίπτωσις (períptōsis)
• σύμπτωσις (súmptōsis)
• ὑπόπτωσις (hupóptōsis)
• πίπτω (píptō)
• πτῶμα (ptôma)
• Latin cāsus
• Modern Greek πτώση (ptósi)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c 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. ^ 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