σίκυος

Forms

σῐ́κῠος (síkuos) m (genitive σῐκῠ́ου); second declension^[1] Also accented σικυός (sikuós), and a feminine σίκυς (síkus) (Alcaeus, Dioscorides).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek σικύα (sikúa, “bottle-gourd”), under which Beekes, Frisk and Chantraine list it.^[3][4][5] Beekes considers the family Pre-Greek: the suffixes match other plant names, and the Hesychius gloss σεκούα (sekoúa) and the town name Σικυών (Sikuṓn), also written Σεκυών (Sekuṓn), show a variation between ⟨ι⟩ and ⟨ε⟩ that has no Indo-European explanation.^[3][6] Chantraine also thinks the plant name was very probably borrowed, and Frisk calls it an old loanword from an unknown source.^[5][4]

Scholars have long compared κύκυον (kúkuon), a Hesychius gloss for the cucumber, Latin cucumis (“cucumber”) and Semitic words such as Biblical Hebrew קִשֻּׁאָה (qiššuʾā, “cucumber”), and Beekes suggests a migratory word, whose exact source and earlier form are unclear.^[3][4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first author with the word is Praxilla, a lyric poet of the 5th century BC, and it appears in Aristophanes' Acharnians and Peace and in the Hippocratic writings in the same century, always for the cucumber.^[7][2][8]

Semantic evolution

The Hippocratic writers say that the cucumber was eaten unripe and raw.^[2] A ripe one was called “ripe cucumber”, σίκυος πέπων, the name of the melon, or in Cratinus the “seeding” cucumber.^[2][5] The “wild cucumber”, σίκυος ἄγριος, was the squirting cucumber, which the Hippocratic writings on women's diseases and Theophrastus mention.^[2][5][1] Theophrastus describes the cucumber, and papyri of the 3rd century BC record it.^[2]

The feminine σίκυς is older, in Alcaeus, and returns in the medical writers Dioscorides and Galen.^[2][3] The related σικύα, the bottle-gourd, also named the cupping glass used in medicine, and the town of Sikyon near Corinth was understood as “cucumber city”.^[3][4][5]

Timeline

• 7th–6th century BC – Alcaeus uses the feminine form σίκυς (síkus).^[2][3]
• 5th century BC – Praxilla, Aristophanes and the Hippocratic writings use σίκυος for the cucumber.^[7][2][8]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes the cucumber and the wild kind.^[2]
• 3rd century BC – Papyri from the archive of Zenon record it.^[2]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides distinguishes the cultivated and the wild σίκυς.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The cucumber, Cucumis sativus.^[2][7]
2. In the phrase σίκυος πέπων: the melon.^[5][2]
3. In the phrase σίκυος ἄγριος (“wild cucumber”): the squirting cucumber, Ecballium elaterium.^[2][1]

Related words

• σικύα (sikúa)
• σίκυς (síkus)
• Σικυών (Sikuṓn)
• κύκυον (kúkuon)
• Latin cucumis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
6. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c 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