Etymologically
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σκάφη

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ská.pʰɛː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈska.ɸi/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈska.fi/[1]

Forms

σκᾰ́φη (skáphē) f (genitive σκᾰ́φης); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek σκάπτω (skáptō, “to dig”), from its stem σκαφ- (skaph-), and so first meant something dug or scooped out.[2][3][1][4] Beekes notes that σκάφη and σκάφος (skáphos, “hull”) fit a meaning “plane, scoop out” better than “dig”, the meaning of Latin scabō (“to scratch”) and Old High German scaban, with which the stem may be compared.[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Aeschylus has it for a bath or washtub, and Herodotus (4.73) for a tub or trough.[2][6][7]

Semantic evolution

It named hollow vessels of many kinds: a trough, tub or bowl, a kneading trough, a washtub or bath, in which the Hippocratic writers seat a patient in hot water.[2][8][4] At the Panathenaea resident aliens carried offerings on trays called σκάφαι.[2] The trough in which exposed children were set afloat, the children of Tyro and Romulus and Remus in Plutarch, was called a σκάφη, and Aristotle uses it of a cradle.[8][2] From the tub came a light boat or skiff, with a pun in Aristophanes' Knights, and so in Polybius, the papyri and the ship's boat of Acts.[2][8][6] Plutarch also uses it of the Persian execution in which a living man was encased in a trough.[8]

A proverb about calling figs and a trough by their own names meant to speak plainly.[2] Erasmus took σκάφη for a digging tool, and the proverb became English “call a spade a spade”.[2][9] Latin borrowed the word as Latin scapha (“skiff”).[10][1]

Modern Greek σκάφη (skáfi) continues it as the name of a long, deep washtub, and keeps the proverb.[11]

Timeline

  • 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it for a bath or washtub.[2][12]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a tub.[2][8][12]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes puns on it as tub and skiff.[2][8][12]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it for a skiff.[2][8][12]
  • 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch tells of the trough in which Romulus and Remus were exposed.[8][2][12]
  • 1540s – English “call a spade a spade” translates the Greek proverb.[9]
  • Modern Greek – It survives as Modern Greek σκάφη (skáfi), a washtub.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A trough, tub, basin or bowl; a kneading trough; a bath or washtub.[2][8]
  2. A tray on which offerings were carried at the Panathenaea.[2]
  3. A child's cradle.[2]
  4. A light boat, skiff.[2][8][6]
  5. A trough used in a Persian method of execution.[8]
  6. A concave sundial.[2]

Word family

  • σκαφίς (skaphís)

Usage notes

The proverb about figs and the trough, recorded by Plutarch, Lucian and Apostolius, meant to call things by their plain names.[2][9]

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 p q r s Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  5. ^ 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 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
  7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  12. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge