Etymologically
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τέγγω

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /téŋ.ɡɔː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈteŋ.ɡo/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈteŋ.ɡo/[1]

Forms

τέγγω (téngō) [1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *téngeti,[1] from the root *teng- (“to wet, moisten”), a primary verb.[2][3]

Cognate with Latin tingō (“to wet, dip, dye”), from *tengō,[2][4] whose variant tinguō was remade after unguō.[2] Germanic has the zero grade in Old High German dunkōn (“to dip”) (modern German Tunke (“sauce”)) and the full grade in Alemannic German tink (“moist”).[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest example is in Alcaeus, who tells a drinker to wet his lungs with wine.[5][6]

Semantic evolution

The verb is mostly poetic and rare in Attic prose.[2][4] It meant to wet by dipping, such as feet in the sea or clothes in a river, or to wet in general, as a stream waters land.[6] In lyric and tragedy it is above all the word for tears, wetting cheeks and eyes, and with an internal object Pindar and Sophocles use it for “to shed” tears.[5][6] Tragedy also has it for hands or beards soaked with blood.[6] In the passive it came to mean to be softened, said of an obstinate person who yields, in Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato and Plutarch.[6] Galen distinguishes it, as moistening from within by liquid food, from βρέχω (brékhō), wetting the surface.[5][4] Derivatives include τέγξις (ténxis, “moistening”) and τεγκτός (tenktós, “softened by moistening”).[2]

Timeline

  • 7th–6th century BC – Alcaeus uses it of wetting the lungs with wine.[5][7]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for shedding tears, and Aeschylus of tears wetting the cheeks.[5][8][7]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles and Euripides use it of tears, rain and blood.[6][5][7]
  • 4th century BC – Plato uses it in the Laws for washing the feet in the sea.[5][7]
  • 2nd century AD – Galen distinguishes it from βρέχω (brékhō).[5][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To wet by dipping in water; to soak or steep.[6][5]
  2. To wet or water in general; of a drinker, to soak one's lungs with wine.[6][5]
  3. To wet with tears; in the passive, to be wet with tears, to weep.[6][5]
  4. With an internal object, to shed tears.[6][5]
  5. To drench or stain with blood.[6]
  6. (passive, figurative) To be softened, to yield.[6][5]

Word family

  • τέγξις (ténxis)
  • τεγκτός (tenktós)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux