στάμνος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /stám.nos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈstam.nos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈstam.nos/^[1]

Forms

στάμνος (stámnos) m (genitive στάμνου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It comes from the root of ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to stand”), Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand”), and means “the standing (jar)”.^[2][3][1] Beekes reconstructs *sth₂-mn-o-, probably from a noun meaning “stand, standing place”.^[2] Wiktionary gives *stéh₂mn̥ (“that which stands”).^[2][1] The suffix is the same as in ἐρυμνός (erumnós) beside ἔρυμα (éruma) and λίμνη (límnē) beside λιμήν (limḗn).^[2][3] Related Greek words are στατός (statós), whose noun στάτος (státos) also means a big jug, and στήμων (stḗmōn).^[2][3]

Cognate with Latin stāmen (“warp of a loom”), Old High German stanta (“a jug that stands”), Lithuanian statìnė (“barrel, cask”), and, with the same suffix, Old High German stam (“stem”) and Tocharian B stām (“tree”).^[2][1][3] Albanian shtâmbë (“bottle”) is a borrowing from the Greek word.^[2] Furnée compared στάφος (stáphos, “trough”) as a Pre-Greek variant, but Beekes finds this uncertain.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first certain use is in Attic comedy: Aristophanes' Plutus names it as a wine jar.^[4][5][6] GLAUx and Babiniotis also report it in a fragment of Hesiod.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

In classical Athens the στάμνος was the earthenware jar into which wine was racked off, hence κατασταμνίζω (katastamnízō) “to put into jars”.^[4] Demosthenes uses it too.^[4][5] It is masculine in most texts but feminine in some, including the Epistle to the Hebrews.^[4][8]

In Hellenistic Greek it was a jar for any use: in Hippocrates for medicine, in the Septuagint for honey, in Delos and Egyptian papyri for keeping money, at Pygela as a ballot box, and in an inscription from Panamara as a measure of oil.^[4] The Septuagint's Exodus and the Epistle to the Hebrews use it for the golden jar in which the manna was kept.^[8][9][10]

The diminutive σταμνίον (stamníon) became medieval σταμνί, whose augmentative is Modern Greek στάμνα (stámna), a clay water jar with a narrow neck.^[7][11] στάμνος itself is used in Modern Greek for the ancient vase.^[12]

Timeline

• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes names it as a wine jar.^[4][5][13]
• 4th century BC – Demosthenes uses it for wine jars.^[4][13]
• 3rd century BC – The Septuagint's Exodus uses it for the jar of manna; at Delos it is a jar for money.^[6][4][8]
• 1st century AD – The Epistle to the Hebrews names the golden jar holding the manna.^[8][4]
• 4th century AD – An inscription from Panamara uses it as a measure of oil.^[4]
• Modern Greek – The diminutive's descendant στάμνα (stámna) means a clay water jar.^[11][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large earthenware jar for storing and carrying wine.^[4][5][2]
2. A jar in general, for honey, money or the like; a ballot box.^[4]
3. (Septuagint, New Testament) The jar in which the manna was kept.^[8][9]
4. A measure of oil.^[4]

Word family

• σταμνίον (stamníon)
• κατασταμνίζω (katastamnízō)

Related words

• ἵστημι (hístēmi)
• στατός (statós)
• στήμων (stḗmōn)

Usage notes

The grammarian Moeris says that the jar called ἀμφορεύς (amphoreús) in common Greek was called στάμνος in Attic.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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
3. ^ a b c d 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
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
8. ^ a b c d e 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
9. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
13. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge