ταινία

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /tai̯.ní.aː/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /tɛˈni.a/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /teˈni.a/^[1]

Forms

ταινῐ́ᾱ (tainíā) f (genitive ταινῐ́ᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed with the secondary suffix -ία (-ía), like κειρία (keiría, “band, tapeworm”) and ἀντλία (antlía), and is probably from Ancient Greek τείνω (teínō, “to stretch”),^[2][3] from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”).^[1][4] Chantraine calls the link with the verb accepted by all, but Beekes finds the details of the formation unclear.^[3][2] The missing intermediate step may have been a noun with the zero grade of the root, *ταῖνα (*taîna) according to Frisk, or *ταινά (*tainá) according to Scheller.^[3][2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears in the 5th century BC, in Bacchylides, where Nereids wear ribbons, and in Empedocles, both times in the plural.^[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Greek it was a ribbon or headband, especially the band tied round a victor's head, as in Plato and Xenophon; ribbons were cheap goods sold by the poor in Demosthenes.^[8][7][9] Hippocratic writers and an inscription from Epidaurus use it for a bandage.^[8] By resemblance it named any long strip: a strip of wood for an inscription in Theophrastus, a strip of land between two waters or a sandbank in Polybius and Diodorus, a fillet in joinery, and a long thin fish in Aristotle.^[8][7][2] Galen uses it for the tapeworm.^[8][2]

Latin borrowed it as taenia.^[10] Coptic has it as ⲧⲉⲛⲓⲁ (tenia).^[11] Modern Greek ταινία (tainía) keeps the ancient “ribbon, strip” and the Hellenistic “tapeworm”, and as a semantic loan from French bande it means a film strip, a tape and a motion picture.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Bacchylides and Empedocles use it of headbands.^[6][14]
• 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writings use it for a bandage.^[8][14]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it as the name of a long thin fish.^[8][14]
• 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it of a sandbank.^[8][7][14]
• 2nd century AD – Galen uses it for the tapeworm.^[8][2][14]
• Modern Greek – It means a ribbon, a tapeworm, and after French bande a film or tape.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ribbon or headband, especially one tied round the head of a victor; also a band decking an urn or an offering.^[8][7]
2. A breastband or abdominal band, and a bandage.^[8]
3. A strip of cloth, of fur, or of wood carrying an inscription.^[8][7]
4. A pennon of a ship or spear.^[8]
5. A strip or tongue of land, a sandbank.^[8][7]
6. (architecture) A fillet, a fascia.^[8][15]
7. (medicine) The tapeworm.^[8][2]
8. A long, thin fish.^[8][2]

Word family

• ταινιόπωλις (tainiópōlis)
• ταινιόω (tainióō)
• ταινιάζω (tainiázō)
• ταινίδιον (tainídion)
• ταινιοειδής (tainioeidḗs)
• ταινίον (tainíon)
• ὑποταίνιος (hupotaínios)

Related words

• τείνω (teínō)
• Latin taenia

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
14. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
15. ^ Smith, William; Wayte, William; Marindin, G. E., eds. (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., London: John Murray