Etymologically
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στόμα

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /stó.ma/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈsto.ma/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈsto.ma/[1]

Forms

στόμᾰ (stóma) n (genitive στόμᾰτος); third declension[1]

  • Aeolic στύμα (stúma).[2][3]
  • It occurs in the compound Mycenaean Greek to-ma-ko, read as στόμαργος (stómargos).[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *stéh₃mn̥ (“mouth”), with the zero grade Proto-Indo-European *sth₃-mn̥- generalized, as in ὄνομα (ónoma).[1][2] Cognate with Avestan staman- (“mouth of a dog”), Welsh safn (“jaw”) and Hittite ištaman- (“ear”).[2][5][1] The word was not originally formed with the suffix -μα but was later associated with the nouns in -μα; the derivatives are built on the short stem, without -ατ-.[5][2]

Beekes holds that the Germanic words for “voice”, from Proto-Germanic *stebnō, are unrelated.[2] Wiktionary includes them as cognates.[1]

Ancient writers derived it from τομή (tomḗ) “cut”, the cut between the lips (Rufus), or from τέμνω (témnō) “to cut”, as that which cuts bread (Orion).[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is the mouth, and the mouth as the organ of speech (“ten tongues and ten mouths”); it is also the mouth of a river or a bay, the point of a spear, and figuratively the jaws of war.[7][3][8]

Semantic evolution

Classical Greek built many phrases on it, such as “to have on one's mouth”, to talk of someone often, and “from one mouth”, with one voice (see Usage notes).[7][3] It is used of any opening: of a harbour, a lake, the Black Sea at the Bosporus, a street, a gate, a well, the underworld.[3][7] Xenophon and Polybius use it of the front line of an army, and the tragedians of the keen edge of a temper.[3] DatSemShift records its polysemy of mouth, opening, river mouth, speech and face.[9]

The New Testament uses it of the edge of a sword.[3][10] The word continues as Modern Greek στόμα (stóma), and in the Pontic, Cappadocian, Cypriot and Calabrian dialects;[11][12] Tsakonian τθούμα (tthoúma) is the Tsakonian form.[1] English stoma was taken from it in zoology in the 1680s, in botany by 1837 and in surgery by 1937.[13]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it for the mouth, for speech, for the mouth of a river and for the point of a spear.[7][3][8]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of the mouths of animals.[7][14]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of the mouth of a river and in the phrase “to have in the mouth”.[7][14]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses “from the mouth” of speaking from memory.[7][3][14]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it of the front line of an army.[3][14]
  • New Testament – It is used of the edge of a sword.[3][10]
  • 1680s – English stoma is taken from it in zoology.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The mouth of a person or animal.[7][3]
  2. (figurative) The jaws of war.[3]
  3. The mouth as the organ of speech: lips, voice, speech.[7][3]
  4. An opening or outlet: the mouth of a river, a harbour or a bay, an entrance.[7][3]
  5. The foremost part of something: the point of a spear, the edge of a sword, the front line of an army.[3]
  6. (figurative) A keen edge, of a temper or of a fighting force.[3]

Word family

  • ἀθυρόστομος (athuróstomos)
  • αἰολόστομος (aiolóstomos)
  • ἐλευθερόστομος (eleutheróstomos)
  • σύστομος (sústomos)
  • στενόστομος (stenóstomos)
  • ψαλιδόστομος (psalidóstomos)

Usage notes

Set phrases: ἀνὰ στόμα ἔχειν or διὰ στόμα ἔχειν (aná stóma ékhein, diá stóma ékhein), to have constantly on one's lips.[7][3] ἀπὸ στόματος εἰπεῖν (apò stómatos eipeîn), to speak extempore or from memory.[7][3] ἐξ ἑνὸς στόματος (ex henòs stómatos), with one voice.[7][3] ἐπὶ στόμα (epì stóma), face down.[7][3] κατὰ στόμα (katà stóma), face to face.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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 e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  4. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  9. ^ Zalizniak, Anna A., et al. (2024), Database of Semantic Shifts (DatSemShift), Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, https://datsemshift.ru
  10. ^ a b 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
  11. ^ Heggarty, Paul, et al. (2023), Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR), Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, https://iecor.clld.org
  12. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  13. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  14. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge