τροχός

Forms

τροχός (trokhós) m (genitive τροχοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrogʰós (“wheel”),^[1][2] an o-grade noun from *dʰregʰ- (“to run”), the root of τρέχω (trékhō, “to run”).^[1][2] The verb has no cognates elsewhere in Indo-European, but the noun agrees exactly with Old Irish droch (“wheel”);^[2][3] Old Armenian դուրգն (durgn, “potter's wheel”) probably shows a lengthened grade, though Chantraine finds its vowel difficult.^[2][3]

The wheel was named as the thing that “runs”: Beekes stresses that the verb means “to run, hurry”, not “to turn”, and compares Dutch, where a wheel “runs well”.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it for a chariot wheel and for a potter's wheel in the Iliad, and in the Odyssey for a round cake of wax or tallow.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Pindar uses it for the wheel on which Ixion was spun, and Sophocles for the wheel of fortune.^[6][5] It was also the wheel of torture, on whose rim the victim was stretched, from Anacreon to the Attic orators.^[6][5] From the round shape came a hoop in Xenophon, a circular zone of land or sea in Plato, the disc of the sun in Aristophanes; papyri of the 1st century AD use it for a water-wheel.^[6][5] From it come τροχαῖος (trokhaîos), the trochee, and the diminutive τροχίσκος (trokhískos).^[2]

The Septuagint uses it for chariot wheels and the potter's wheel, and the Letter of James speaks of the “wheel of existence”.^[7][8] It was borrowed as Latin trochus (“hoop”),^[9] and Coptic took it over as well.^[10]

In Modern Greek τροχός (trochós) is a wheel; the potter's wheel continues the ancient word, while its other technical senses are learned, and the sense “gearwheel” may follow German.^[11] Babiniotis notes that it has been a technical term for circular tools and devices since antiquity.^[12]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for a chariot wheel and a potter's wheel.^[4][5]
• 6th century BC – Anacreon mentions the wheel of torture.^[5][6][13]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for Ixion's wheel.^[5][6][13]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it figuratively for the wheel of fortune.^[5][6][13]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for a hoop.^[6][13]
• 1st century AD – A papyrus uses it for a water-wheel; the Letter of James speaks of the “wheel of existence”.^[5][8]
• Modern Greek – It means a wheel, with learned technical senses.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wheel of a carriage or chariot, or Ixion's wheel; figuratively, the wheel of fortune.^[6][5]
2. A potter's wheel.^[6][5]
3. A wheel of torture, on whose rim the victim was stretched.^[6][5]
4. A circular band, hoop.^[6]
5. A circular zone or belt of land or sea.^[6]
6. A round object: a cake of wax or tallow, the disc of the sun, a disc on a horse's bit.^[6]
7. The wheel of a stage machine; a water-wheel.^[5]

Word family

• εὔτροχος (eútrokhos)
• τροχαῖος (trokhaîos)
• τροχήλατος (trokhḗlatos)
• τροχοειδής (trokhoeidḗs)
• τροχιά (trokhiá)
• τροχίσκος (trokhískos)

Related words

• Latin trochus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 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. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
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 m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
10. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
13. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge