πῦρ

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /pŷːr/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈpyr/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈpyr/^[1]

Forms

πῦρ (pûr) n (genitive πῠρός); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *pāwər, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥ (“fire”).^[1] It was an old heteroclite noun with /r/ in the nominative and /n/ in the oblique cases, still inflected so in Hittite: Hittite paḫḫur, genitive paḫḫuenaš.^[2][3] Greek eliminated the alternation.^[2] The Linear B word Mycenaean Greek pu-ka-wo has been read as “fire-kindlers”.^[2][1]

Cognate with Umbrian pir (“fire”), Old Armenian հուր (hur, “fire”), Gothic 𐍆𐍉𐌽 (fōn, “fire”), Old High German fuir (“fire”), Old English fȳr (“fire”), Tocharian A por (“fire”) and Tocharian B puwar (“fire”).^[2][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it from the first book of the Iliad (1.104) for fire: kindling a fire (8.521) and throwing fire on the ships (15.597).^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

It was the fire of the hearth and the altar, the fire that tests the purity of gold (Theognis, Pindar, Isocrates), and the destroying fire of war.^[6] The funeral fire and lightning were also πῦρ, and it could mean a fever.^[1] Heraclitus, Aeschylus and Empedocles treat it as an element, and Parmenides identifies it with the upper air.^[6] The word has no plural; πυρά (purá), originally its plural, means watch-fires in the Iliad.^[5][2]

In the New Testament it is fire sent from heaven to punish sinners and the fire of punishment.^[6] Medieval Greek kept the word, and Tsakonian has πυρέ.^[7] Modern Greek πυρ is learned; its use as a command to fire weapons is a semantic loan from French feu.^[8] English pyro- comes from it.^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for fire and the plural πυρά for watch-fires.^[4][5]
• 6th–5th century BC – Heraclitus treats it as the basic element.^[6][10]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for the fire that tests gold.^[6][10]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for divine punishment.^[6]
• Modern Greek – πυρ is a learned word and a command to fire.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Fire, flames.^[5][6]
2. A fire on the hearth or altar; a funeral fire.^[6][1]
3. Fire as a weapon, destroying fire.^[6]
4. Fire as an element.^[6]
5. Lightning.^[1]
6. (medicine) A fever.^[1]

Word family

• ἔμπυρος (émpuros)
• ζάπυρος (zápuros)
• κεβλήπυρις (keblḗpuris)
• πυρά (purá)
• πυρακτέω (puraktéō)
• πύρδανον (púrdanon)
• πυρέσσω (puréssō)
• πυρετός (puretós)
• πυρευτικός (pureutikós)
• πυρή (purḗ)
• πυρία (puríā)
• πυριατήριον (puriatḗrion)
• πυριγενής (purigenḗs)
• πύρινος (púrinos)

Related words

• English fire
• English pyro-

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
5. ^ a b c d Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge