Etymologically
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πυρρός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pyr̥.r̥ós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /pyrˈros/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /pyrˈros/[1]

Forms

πῠρρός (purrhós) m (feminine πῠρρᾱ́, neuter πῠρρόν); first/second declension[1]

Etymology

It is formed from πῦρ (pûr, “fire”) with an adjective suffix.[1][2][3] Chantraine calls the link with fire evident, but the details are difficult.[2] The horse name Πυρϝος (Purwos) in Corinth, perhaps also the Mycenaean name Mycenaean Greek pu-wo, shows a suffix -ϝο-, common in colour adjectives; that form should have given an Ionic-Attic form with a single /r/, not πυρρός.[4][2] Scholars therefore usually posit Proto-Greek *purswó-, whence also πυρσός (pursós) of tragedy and Doric, while Frisk suggests expressive doubling of the /r/, which Beekes finds ad hoc.[4][2] Chantraine and Babiniotis consider two separate formations, one with /-wo-/ and one with /-so-/.[2][3] πῦρ itself is from Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥ (“fire”).[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest certain use is in Xenophanes, of red-haired people.[6] A form of the word in Aeschylus' Persians (316), used of a red beard, is a conjecture.[6][7]

Semantic evolution

It names a yellow-brown to red colour: Plato describes it as a mixture of golden yellow and grey.[8][6] It is used especially of red hair and of a first beard, of red-haired people in Herodotus and of the Scythians in the Hippocratic writers, and of tawny lions, chestnut horses and red cattle.[6][8] Herodotus has it of a red cloak, Moschus of a rose and the Septuagint of a red stew.[6]

It passed into Latin burrus (“red”).[9] Medieval Greek kept it in literary use.[10] Today Modern Greek πυρρός (pyrrós) is a learned word.[11]

Timeline

  • 6th–5th century BC – Xenophanes uses it of red-haired people.[6][12]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus describes a people as red-haired and mentions a red cloak.[6][8][12]
  • 5th century BC – Euripides uses the form πυρσός of a lion and of a beard.[6][8][12]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato defines the colour as a blend of yellow and grey.[6][8][12]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – The Septuagint uses it of a red stew (Genesis 25:30).[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Flame-coloured, yellowish-red, auburn; of hair or a beard, red.[6][8]
  2. Of persons: red-haired.[6][8]
  3. Tawny, of animals; of a horse, chestnut.[8][6]
  4. Red, of a cloak, a rose or gold; of eyes, fiery or bloodshot.[8][6]
  5. Yellowish-brown, of dirt or stains.[8]

Word family

  • πυρράζω (purrházō)
  • πυρρίας (purrhíās)
  • πυρρόομαι (purróomai)
  • πυρρότης (purrótēs)
  • πυρρόχροος (purrókhroos)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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
  3. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  4. ^ a b 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. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  11. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  12. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge