σάρξ

Pronunciation

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

Forms

σᾰ́ρξ (sárx) f (genitive σᾰρκός); third declension^[1] Genitive σαρκός, Aeolic σύρξ, plural σύρκες.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *turḱ-s, a zero-grade noun of the root *twerḱ- (“to cut”), and so first “a piece cut off, a piece of meat”.^[1][2] Van Beek sets up Proto-Greek *tu̯r̥k-, and explains the Aeolic σύρξ as an o-grade *tu̯órk- raised by Cowgill's law.^[4]

There is no certain match outside Greek.^[5] The usual comparison, which Frisk thought well worth considering, is with the Avestan verb θβarəs-, “to cut” and also “to shape, create”; the sense would then be like that of Latin carō (“flesh”), which belongs with κείρω (keírō, “to cut”).^[5][2] Lubotsky connects Old Irish torc (“boar”) with the same root.^[2] Albanian shark (“flesh of a fruit”) is a borrowing from σάρξ.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it almost always in the plural: dogs are glutted with “fat and flesh”, and the Odyssey speaks of “entrails, flesh and bones”.^[3][6][2] The singular occurs once in the Odyssey.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

In tragedy it is flesh and also the whole body: Aeschylus describes a man with “an old mind but young flesh”, and in Euripides' Hippolytus a man prays that the earth may not receive his flesh.^[3][7] The body is set against the mind in Aeschylus and Euripides.^[7] The Hippocratic writers describe flesh forming from the blood in the embryo, and inscriptions use the plural for portions of meat.^[3] The word also names the flesh of a fruit.^[1]

In the Septuagint it renders the Hebrew word for flesh: meat, the body, the male member, and in πᾶσα σάρξ “all flesh”, all mankind.^[8] The New Testament adds “flesh and blood” for a human being as against God and κατὰ σάρκα for merely human standards; in Paul the flesh is the seat of sin, and in John the flesh of Jesus is given in the Eucharist.^[7][9][10] Spicq notes that the contrast of flesh with mind or spirit goes back to the classical writers.^[11]

Medieval vernacular Greek also had the form σάρκα, from the accusative.^[12][13] In Modern Greek σάρκα (sárka) is the usual word for flesh, and σαρξ survives only in archaic phrases.^[13] Its compound σαρκοφάγος (sarkophágos, “flesh-eating”) named a stone said to consume corpses, whence Latin sarcophagus.^[2]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use the plural for flesh.^[3][6]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it for the body as against the mind.^[3][7]
• 5th century BC – Hippocratic writers describe flesh forming in the embryo.^[3][14]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses the singular and the plural alike.^[3][14]
• 1st century AD – Paul uses it for the flesh as the seat of sin.^[7][9]
• Medieval period – The form σάρκα appears.^[12][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. flesh of a human or animal, and in the plural pieces of flesh or portions of meat.^[3][7]
2. The body as a whole.^[3][7]
3. The flesh of a fruit.^[1]
4. (Koine) πᾶσα σάρξ, all mankind; human nature; σὰρξ καὶ αἷμα, a mortal.^[7][10]
5. (New Testament) The flesh as the seat of sin or of sexual desire.^[7][9]
6. (New Testament) The flesh of Jesus, in the Eucharist.^[7]
7. (Septuagint) The male member.^[8]

Word family

• ἄσαρκος (ásarkos)
• σαρκάζω (sarkázō)
• σαρκοφάγος (sarkophágos)
• σαρκασμός (sarkasmós)
• σάρκινος (sárkinos)
• σαρκικός (sarkikós)

Related words

• Latin carō
• English sarcasm

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ van Beek, Lucien (2022), The Reflexes of Syllabic Liquids in Ancient Greek: Linguistic Prehistory of the Greek Dialects and Homeric Kunstsprache, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c 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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
11. ^ Spicq, Ceslas (1994), Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, tr. James D. Ernest, 3 vols, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
12. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ a b c Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge