πόλος

Forms

πόλος (pólos) m (genitive πόλου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is the o-grade noun of πέλομαι (pélomai, “to be in motion, become”),^[2][3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁- (“to go round, turn”).^[2][5] Beekes takes it as a productive Greek derivative of the verb;^[2] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Hellenic *pólos and *kʷól-os.^[1]

The root is the one of Latin colō (“to till, inhabit”), Sanskrit चरति (cárati, “to move about, graze”) and Albanian sjell (“to turn around, bring”).^[2][5] Before /e/ the labiovelar /kʷ/ of the root became the /p/ of this verb only in Aeolic;^[2] Ionic-Attic has /t/ in τέλλομαι (téllomai).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Aeschylus uses it in the Prometheus Bound for the vault of heaven.^[3][4][6]

Semantic evolution

The basic sense is a pivot or axis on which something turns.^[3][4] Herodotus uses it for a dish-shaped sundial, and Xenophon for the centre of a round threshing-floor.^[4] Plato's Timaeus speaks of the earth winding round the axis stretched through the universe, and Aristotle of the upper and lower, visible and invisible poles.^[3][5] Hipparchus names the north and south poles, and Eratosthenes uses it for the pole star.^[3]

In the New Testament apocrypha it is the vault of heaven.^[7] It was borrowed as Latin polus.^[8] Modern Greek πόλος (pólos) is a learned word;^[9] its senses of the earth's and a magnet's poles copy French pôle, which goes back to the same Latin word.^[9]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it for the vault of heaven.^[3][4][10]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a sundial, and Euripides for the starry sky.^[4][3][10]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it for the axis of the celestial sphere, and Xenophon for the centre of a threshing-floor.^[3][4][10]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for the poles of the celestial sphere.^[3][4][10]
• 2nd century BC – Hipparchus speaks of the north and south poles.^[3][10]
• Modern Greek – Modern Greek πόλος (pólos) is a learned word, with senses copied from French.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pivot or axis; the axis of the celestial sphere.^[3][4]
2. A pole of that axis; later the north or south pole.^[3][4]
3. The pole star.^[3]
4. The vault of heaven, the firmament.^[3][4][7]
5. The orbit of a star.^[3]
6. A dish-shaped sundial.^[4]
7. The centre of a round threshing-floor.^[4]

Word family

• πολέω (poléō)

Related words

• πέλομαι (pélomai)
• κύκλος (kúklos)
• Latin polus

References

1. ^ a b 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 o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge