Etymologically
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σελήνη

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /se.lɛ̌ː.nɛː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /seˈli.ni/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /seˈli.ni/[1]

Forms

σελήνη (selḗnē) f (genitive σελήνης); first declension[1] Doric σελᾱ́νᾱ (selánā), Aeolic σελάννα (selánna).[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *selasnā,[1] a derivative in -νᾱ of σέλας (sélas, “light, glow, beam”).[4][2][5] The Aeolic form σελάννα (selánna) keeps the trace of the /s/ before /n/.[5] Beekes compares the formation of the Indo-European word for the moon, Proto-Indo-European *l(o)uksneh₂-, seen in Latin lūna and related to λύχνος (lúkhnos, “lamp”).[4] The further etymology of the word for light is obscure.[5]

In Plato's Cratylus Socrates explains the form Σελαναία as the light that is always new and old, and the Etymologicum Gudianum explains the word as “light” with a privative prefix, the one deprived of light.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

From the Iliad on it is the moon: Homer has the full moon and the stars shining around the bright moon.[2][7][8]

Semantic evolution

Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes personify Selene, the moon goddess, a use Homer does not have.[2][3] In Classical Greek it is also moonlight (“by the moon”, in Andocides and Xenophon), the lunar month (in Euripides, and “reckoning by the moon” in Thucydides and Aristophanes), and the moonlit night of a festival.[2][3] Aristophanes and Plato speak of Thessalian witches who draw down the moon.[2] It also named a moon-shaped wheaten cake, a round table, and a plant; for astronomers a “moon” was a unit of measure.[2] Aelian speaks of “the disease from the moon”, and the Hellenistic verb σεληνιάζομαι (selēniázomai) meant to be seized by epilepsy, which was blamed on the moon.[2][7]

In the New Testament the moon is darkened or turned to blood among the signs of the end.[9] Today Modern Greek σελήνη (selíni) is a learned word beside the everyday φεγγάρι, and many modern compounds in σεληνο- are loans of French and English learned words.[10][7]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it for the moon.[2][3][8]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod names the moon goddess Selene.[2][3][11]
  • 5th century BC – Thucydides dates by the lunar month, and Euripides uses it for the month.[2][3][11]
  • 1st century AD – The New Testament names the darkened moon among the signs of the end.[9]
  • 2nd century AD – Ptolemy uses a “moon's breadth” as an astronomical measure.[2][11]
  • Modern Greek – It survives as the learned word σελήνη.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The moon; moonlight.[2][3][9]
  2. A lunar month.[2][3]
  3. A moonlit night, the night of a festival.[3]
  4. A moon-shaped wheaten cake; a round table or tripod.[2]
  5. A plant.[2]
  6. (as a proper noun) Selene, the moon goddess.[2][3]

Word family

  • σεληνίτης (selēnī́tēs)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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 h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  4. ^ a b 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
  5. ^ a b c Heggarty, Paul, et al. (2023), Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR), Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, https://iecor.clld.org
  6. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  7. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  8. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  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 Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  11. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge