σπορά

Forms

σπορᾱ́ (sporā́) f (genitive σπορᾶς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

From σπείρω (speírō, “to sow”) with the suffix -ά (-á), a verbal noun with the o-grade of the root, like σπόρος (spóros).^[1][2] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sper- (“to strew”), whose oldest sense in Greek must have been “to scatter”.^[3][4] Beekes's only sure cognate outside Greek is Hittite išpāri (“spreads out, strews”); he rejects the Armenian words for “to scatter” that others compare.^[3]

Chantraine notes that Greek, like Armenian and Indo-Iranian, lacks the common Indo-European verb “to sow”, Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- of Latin sēmen, and uses this root instead.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest uses are in tragedy and are figurative: in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound the word means the line or origin from which someone springs (the CGL marks the passage as doubtful), and Sophocles uses it of a person's birth.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

In 5th-century tragedy the word covers the whole range of “sowing”: Sophocles uses it for the ground where the dragon's teeth were sown at Thebes and for offspring, and Euripides counts years as “sowings”.^[5][6] Plato uses it for the sowing of seed and, figuratively, for the begetting of children, and Theophrastus for the season of sowing.^[5][6]

In the Septuagint it means sowing and also the seed or crop itself, and in the First Epistle of Peter believers are said to be born again of a seed that does not perish.^[8][9] The word has kept its meaning without a break: medieval vernacular Greek and Modern Greek σπορά (sporá) mean the sowing of seed.^[10][11][2] Through Modern Latin spora it gave English spore (1836), the reproductive body of flowerless plants.^[12]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Aeschylus and Sophocles use it of a person's origin and birth.^[5][6]
• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of offspring and of the time of sowing, counting years as “sowings”.^[6][5]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it for the sowing of seed and for procreation.^[5][13]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it for the sowing season.^[5][13]
• 2nd century BC – The Septuagint (1 Maccabees) uses it of the crop that is sown.^[8][9]
• 1st century AD – The First Epistle of Peter speaks of being born again from an imperishable seed.^[9][5]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular Greek keeps the word with its ancient meaning.^[10]
• 1836 – English borrows spore through Modern Latin.^[12]
• Modern Greek – σπορά (sporá) is the sowing of seed.^[11][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sowing of seed; figuratively, the sowing of learning in the soul.^[5][9]
2. Procreation, the begetting of children.^[5][6]
3. Origin, birth, lineage.^[5][6]
4. Offspring, a child.^[6][5]
5. Seedtime; in poetry, a year.^[6][5]
6. Something sown: the seed or crop; a sown field.^[5][6][8]

Related words

• σπείρω (speírō)
• σπόρος (spóros)
• σπέρμα (spérma)
• English spore

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
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 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b c Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ a b c d 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 Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge