στήμων

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /stɛ̌ː.mɔːn/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈsti.mon/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈsti.mon/^[1]

Forms

στήμων (stḗmōn) m (genitive στήμονος); third declension^[1] Doric στᾱ́μων (stā́mōn).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂-mn-, a noun formed from *steh₂- (“to stand”),^[4][5] so that the warp is named as the threads that stand upright in the loom.^[2][6] Cognate with Latin stāmen (“thread, warp”), which matches it in form and meaning except for its neuter gender,^[7][8] and with Lithuanian stomuõ (“body shape, stature”).^[4] Within Greek it belongs with ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to make stand”), and the zero grade of the same root is found in στάμνος (stámnos, “jar”).^[4][1]

Chantraine counts it among the old words of weaving technique, one of the nouns in -μων (-mōn) that may continue old neuters.^[8] Ancient grammarians already derived it from the verb “to make stand”, comparing the formation of φιλήμων (philḗmōn, “affectionate”) from φιλέω (philéō).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Hesiod's Works and Days, which advises weaving much woof into a thin warp.^[2][10] There it is the vertical set of threads in the upright loom, opposed to the crosswise threads of the woof (κρόκη (krókē)).^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its technical meaning throughout antiquity: comic poets use it of the warp, and Plato in the Statesman and the Cratylus.^[2][3] From the warp it came to mean any single thread or yarn, as in Aristophanes' Lysistrata and in Ptolemaic papyri that record sums of thread.^[2][3] Plutarch uses it figuratively of the thread on which a country's fortune hangs.^[3] In the Septuagint it is the warp of a garment in the laws on leprosy in Leviticus.^[11]

Modern Greek revived it as the learned Modern Greek στήμονας (stímonas), the botanical term for the male organ of a flower, a meaning taken from French étamine.^[12][6]

Timeline

• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Works and Days has the earliest example, of the warp in the loom.^[2][10][13]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for thread, and Plato for the warp in the Statesman.^[2][3][13]
• 3rd century BC – Papyri record the warp and the woof, and quantities of thread.^[2]
• 3rd century BC – The Septuagint Leviticus uses it of the warp of cloth infected with leprosy.^[11][14]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it figuratively, of the thread by which a country's fortune hangs.^[3][13]
• Modern Greek – The learned στήμονας (stímonas) names the stamen of a flower, after French étamine.^[12][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The warp in the upright loom, the threads running lengthwise, as opposed to the woof.^[2][3]
2. A thread or yarn in general.^[2][3]
3. (figurative) The thread on which something depends.^[3]
4. (in the plural, of woodwork) Some part of a ceiling, of uncertain meaning, in inscriptions from Delos.^[2]

Word family

• στημνίον (stēmníon)
• στημονώδης (stēmonṓdēs)

Related words

• ἵστημι (hístēmi)
• στάμνος (stámnos)
• κρόκη (krókē)
• Latin stāmen

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 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 c 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. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
7. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b c 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
9. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
10. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
11. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
14. ^ Giannakis, Georgios K., ed. (2014), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics, 3 vols, Leiden; Boston: Brill