σπέος

Forms

σπέος (spéos) n (genitive σπείους); third declension^[1] Epic σπεῖος, genitive σπείους, dative σπῆι, plural dative σπέσσι, σπήεσσι, genitive σπείων.^[2][3]

Etymology

Beekes considers it, beyond doubt, Pre-Greek, following Furnée.^[3][4][1] It is apparently related to σπήλαιον (spḗlaion, “cave”).^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from the Iliad on, meaning a cave: in the Iliad sheep are driven into one.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

σπέος is a word of epic poetry, with one prose witness, an inscription from Cyprus.^[3][2] In the Odyssey it is the hollow cave of Calypso and the cave dwellings of the Cyclopes, and a ship can be drawn into one for shelter.^[2][6] Homer has several unusual forms, σπεῖος, σπείους, σπῆι, σπέσσι and σπήεσσι.^[2] Chantraine reads most of them as spellings of contracted or metrically lengthened forms of σπέε-.^[2][7] Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, Sophocles, Callimachus and Apollonius of Rhodes kept it in poetry.^[5][8] The Etymologicum Magnum and Zonaras list it among their glosses.^[9][10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for caves and grottoes.^[2][5]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony uses the dative σπῆι.^[2][11][8]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it in a fragment.^[8][11]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses it.^[5][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cave, cavern or grotto.^[2][5]

Related words

• σπήλαιον (spḗlaion)

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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
11. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge