τιμή

Forms

τῑμή (tīmḗ) f (genitive τῑμῆς); first declension^[1] Doric τιμά.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a noun in -μη (-mē) from τίω (tíō, “to honour, value”).^[1][3][4][2] Beekes traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *kʷeh₁i- (“observe, hold back, honour”) and finds the noun, with its long vowel, best explained from a root with a laryngeal rather than with a suffix *-smeh₂.^[5] He compares Sanskrit and Slavic verbs meaning “to observe, honour” and “to expect”, and Latin observō for the same shift of meaning.^[5]

Chantraine and Babiniotis keep the verb apart from τίνω (tínō, “to pay a penalty”), although Homer already plays on the likeness.^[3][6] Other scholars join the two.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad it is the honour and prerogative of gods and kings, honour paid as a reward, and the satisfaction or compensation sought for an injury, as when the Greeks seek it for Menelaus from the Trojans.^[7][8][2]

Semantic evolution

Benveniste saw Homeric τιμή as the dignity of royal rank, a regard that brings material advantages.^[3] Hesiod uses it of the honours and prerogatives of the gods and of offerings made to them.^[7] In Ionic and Attic it came to mean an office or magistracy, and Aristotle says that offices are called “honours”.^[7][2]

Of things it meant worth and price: Herodotus speaks of buying “at a price”, and Attic speakers and Plato of selling and valuation.^[7][2] The same polysemy of “honour” and “price” is recorded in other languages.^[9] In the New Testament it is both price (the blood money of Judas) and honour.^[10] Coptic borrowed the word, with records from about AD 200.^[11]

The word lives on in Modern Greek τιμή (timí), “honour, good name” and “price, value”; one of its modern senses is a learned semantic loan from French valeur.^[12][6]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it of honour, royal prerogative and compensation.^[7][2]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of the honours of the gods and of offerings.^[7]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of an office and of a price.^[7][2]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle calls offices of state honours.^[7]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it of the price paid for the potter's field.^[10]
• About AD 200 – The earliest dated Coptic manuscript has the borrowed word.^[11]
• Modern Greek – τιμή (timí) means honour and price.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Honour, esteem, worship, paid to gods or superiors; in the plural, honours.^[7][2]
2. Honour, dignity, prerogative of a god or king.^[7][2]
3. An office, magistracy; in the plural, civic honours.^[7][2]
4. A person in authority.^[7]
5. A gift of honour, reward; an offering to the gods.^[7]
6. Of things: worth, value, price.^[7][2][10]
7. Valuation, assessment.^[7][2]
8. (Homer) Compensation, satisfaction for an injury.^[7][2]

Word family

• πάντιμος (pántīmos)
• τιμάω (tīmáō)
• τίμιος (tī́mios)
• τιμωρία (tīmōríā)
• τιμωρός (tīmōrós)
• φιλότιμος (philótīmos)

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 l m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ 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 c 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. ^ a b 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