Etymologically
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τροχός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /tro.kʰós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /troˈxos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /troˈxos/[1]

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)

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