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