ταυτότης

Forms

ταυτότης (tautótēs) f (genitive ταυτότητος); third declension.^[1][2] LSJ prints it with the coronis of crasis, ⟨ταὐτότης⟩.^[1][2]

Etymology

It is an abstract noun in -της (-tēs) formed from Ancient Greek ταὐτό (tautó, “the same”), which is the crasis of τό (tó) and αὐτό (autó).^[3][4] Beekes and Chantraine treat it among the derivatives of αὐτός (autós, “self; the same”), beside the rarer αὐτότης (autótēs, “identity”) of Sextus Empiricus and the verbs ταὐτόομαι (tautóomai, “to become identified”) and ταὐτίζω (tautízō, “to use as a synonym”).^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in Aristotle (4th century BC), in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Metaphysics, meaning sameness or identity.^[1][2][7][3]

Semantic evolution

It remained a word of philosophy: Galen, Plotinus and Damascius use it for identity, and Plotinus for the keeping of one's identity.^[1] Rhetoric gave it a second, negative sense: Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Hermogenes use it for monotony of style.^[1][7] A papyrus of the 5th century AD uses it for an unchanged condition.^[1] The Byzantine lexicon of Zonaras distinguishes three kinds of sameness, in genus, in species and in number.^[8]

Modern Greek has it as the learned ταυτότητα (taftótita), formed on the ancient accusative; its senses of personal identity and of an identity card follow French identité and carte d'identité.^[9][3]

Timeline

• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for identity in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Metaphysics.^[1][7][10]
• 1st century BC – Dionysius of Halicarnassus uses it for monotony of style.^[1][7][10]
• 3rd century AD – Plotinus uses it for the maintenance of identity.^[1][10]
• 5th century AD – A papyrus from Oxyrhynchus uses it of an unchanged condition.^[1]
• Modern Greek – The learned ταυτότητα (taftótita) also comes to mean an identity card, after French.^[9][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Sameness, identity.^[1][2]
2. (rhetoric) Monotony of style.^[1]
3. An unchanged condition; the maintenance of identity.^[1]

Related words

• αὐτός (autós)
• αὐτότης (autótēs)
• ταὐτίζω (tautízō)

References

1. ^ 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
2. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
4. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
5. ^ 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
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge