πᾶς

Forms

πᾶς (pâs) (feminine πᾶσᾰ, neuter πᾶν)^[1] Feminine Aeolic παῖσα (paîsa), Cretan, Thessalian and Arcadian πάνσα (pánsa); neuter Doric and Aeolic πᾰ́ν.^[2][3] Mycenaean Greek pa-te (nominative plural), pa-to (genitive singular), pa-sa (feminine), pa-si (dative plural).^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *pánts, from earlier *πάντς (*pánts), with the neuter πᾶν (pân) made analogically for the expected *πάν (*pán).^[1][2] The Mycenaean forms prove that the word began with /p/, not with a labiovelar /kʷ/, and so allow the comparison with Tocharian A puk (“all”) and Tocharian B po (“all”), plural stem pont-; on this basis Beekes reconstructs *ph₂-ent- (“all”), though Wiktionary calls the link uncertain.^[2][1] The old comparison with Latin quantus is ruled out.^[4][2]

Pokorny derived it from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeu- (“to swell”) and compared Sanskrit शश्वत् (śáśvant-, “every, complete”), a view that Frisk mentions with doubt.^[5][4] The compound ἅπας (hápās, “all together”) comes from *sm̥- and the same word.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is on the Mycenaean tablets, as Mycenaean Greek pa-si “to all” and pa-sa.^[2][1] In Homer it has all its main senses: plural “all”, singular “the whole” and “every”, as in “all the gods and all the goddesses” (πάντες τε θεοὶ πᾶσαί τε θέαιναι, Iliad 8.5).^[3][6][7]

Semantic evolution

It is one of the commonest words of Greek, with almost 88,000 instances in the GLAUx corpus.^[8] Its use with the article was refined in Classical prose: placed outside the article and noun it means “all” (πᾶσαν τὴν δύναμιν, Herodotus), and placed between them it marks the sum as a total (ὁ πᾶς ἀριθμός, Aeschylus).^[3][7] The neuter τὸ πᾶν became “the whole” and, for Empedocles and Plato, “the universe”.^[7][9] With a negative it meant “not any, none”; in the Septuagint and the New Testament the phrase πᾶσα σάρξ, “all flesh”, renders Hebrew kol-basar, and οὐ … πᾶσα σάρξ means “no one”.^[9][10]

As the first part of compounds, παν- (pan-) and παντο- (panto-) formed words such as παντοκράτωρ (pantokrátōr, “the Almighty”) (Septuagint), the source of English pan-.^[2][1] Coptic borrowed several of its forms.^[11] In Modern Greek the word survives as the learned πας, “each, every”, the same as everyday κάθε, mostly in set phrases such as κατά πάσα πιθανότητα, “in all probability”, and εν πάση περιπτώσει, “in any case”.^[12][13]

Timeline

• Mycenaean period – The tablets have Mycenaean Greek pa-si and pa-sa.^[2]
• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for “all”, “the whole” and “every”.^[6][3][8]
• 7th–6th century BC – Sappho and Alcaeus have the Aeolic forms παῖς and παῖσα.^[3][14]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it with the article for “all”, and Aeschylus has ὁ πᾶς ἀριθμός, “the full total”.^[3][7][14]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament, following the Septuagint, uses πᾶσα σάρξ, “all flesh”, for everyone, and with a negative for “no one”.^[10][9]
• Modern Greek – The learned πας (pas) means “every” in set phrases.^[12]

Meanings

Determiner

1. (plural) all; as a pronoun, all people, everything.^[3][7]
2. (singular) The whole of, all of; with the article before or after its noun, the whole; between article and noun, the full total.^[3][7]
3. (singular, without article) every, each; πᾶς τις, every single one.^[3][7]
4. Every possible, every kind of; also, hyperbolically, utter, complete.^[7]
5. (with numbers, plural) Altogether, in all.^[7]
6. Any whatever, anyone.^[3][7] With a negative, in the Septuagint and the New Testament: no one, none.^[9][10]
7. (neuter, τὸ πᾶν) The whole, and in philosophy the universe.^[7][9]
8. (neuter, adverbial) πάντα or τὸ πᾶν: in every way, altogether; διὰ παντός, continually; παντὸς μᾶλλον, more than anything, most certainly.^[3][9]

Word family

• ἅπας (hápās)
• σύμπας (súmpās)
• πάνυ (pánu)
• πάντως (pántōs)
• πάντοτε (pántote)
• πάντοθεν (pántothen)
• πανταχοῦ (pantakhoû)
• παντοῖος (pantoîos)
• παντελής (pantelḗs)
• παντοκράτωρ (pantokrátōr)
• πάμπαν (pámpan)
• παντάπασι (pantápāsi)
• παννυχίς (pannukhís)

Related words

• English pan-

Usage notes

LSJ lists two unrelated words of the same spelling: a Cypriot πᾶς, the same as παῖς (paîs) “child”, in inscriptions, and a Syracusan πᾶς, “father” (πατήρ (patḗr)), recorded by the Etymologicum Magnum.^[3][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b c d e f Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
14. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
15. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press