πυρός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /pyː.rós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /pyˈros/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /pyˈros/^[1]

Forms

πῡρός (pūrós) m (genitive πῡροῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *puH-ros (“corn, wheat”), an old name of wheat kept also in Balto-Slavic and Germanic.^[2][1][3] Cognate with Lithuanian pũras (“single grain of winter wheat”), Proto-Slavic *py̑rь (“couch grass”) and Old English fyrs (“couch grass”), which has a different suffix.^[2][1][3]

Beekes thinks it may nevertheless be an old migratory word.^[2] Others derive it from the root Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“to strike”) of Latin paviō (“to beat”), as grain that is threshed.^[2][1] Janda accepts that root but assumes a shift from “striking” to “cleansing”, wheat being the grain easily freed from its husk, which Beekes finds possible but not compelling.^[2][1] Wiktionary also cites a link with πῦρ (pûr, “fire”), from grain dried over fire.^[1] The dialect form σπυρός (spurós) may owe its /s/ to σῖτος (sîtos, “grain”) or to σπόρος (spóros, “seed”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is wheat, called honey-sweet, ground in the mill and fed to geese, and named together with barley and spelt.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Wheat kept this name through Classical Greek, from Herodotus and Thucydides to Demosthenes, usually beside barley.^[4] Aristotle uses it for a single grain of wheat, and Dioscorides calls “wild wheat” the lesser celandine.^[4] In the Septuagint, in Philo and in the papyri it is still the word for wheat, and the Acts of Paul speak of its sowing.^[6]

Medieval Greek used the grain of wheat as a unit of weight.^[7] The modern adjective Modern Greek πυρός (pyrós, “red-hot”) is a different word, formed from the word for fire.^[8][7]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for wheat.^[4][5]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides name wheat and barley together.^[4][9]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for a single grain of wheat.^[4][9]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides calls the lesser celandine “wild wheat”.^[4][9]
• Byzantine period – The grain of wheat serves as a unit of weight.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Wheat.^[4][6]
2. A grain of wheat; in medieval texts, a unit of weight.^[4][7]
3. Wild wheat: the lesser celandine.^[4]

Word family

• πυρομέτρης (pūrométrēs)
• πυρήν (pūrḗn)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ a b 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
7. ^ a b c d Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
8. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge