τόσος

Forms

τόσος (tósos) ^[1] Epic also τόσσος (tóssos), in Homer, Hesiod and lyric passages of tragedy.^[2][3] Mycenaean Greek to-so.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *tótsos, earlier *tótyos,^[1] which Beekes and Chantraine trace to Proto-Indo-European *toti-o-, formed on the adverb *tóti (“so many”).^[3][4][1] The adverb survives in Sanskrit तति (táti, “so many”) and Latin tot (“so many”), with totidem (“just as many”).^[3][4][1] The formation probably arose first in the plural, “so many”, from which the singular “so great” was made.^[3][4] It is the demonstrative that answers the relative ὅσος (hósos) and the interrogative πόσος (pósos).^[4][2] The Mycenaean spelling does not show whether the ⟨σ⟩ was single or double.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean tablets already have it.^[3][4] In Homer it means “so many” or “so much” in number or quantity and “so great” in size or importance, often answered by ὅσος (hósos).^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

Τόσος stayed a word of poetry.^[3][2] In Attic prose τοσόσδε (tosósde) and τοσοῦτος (tosoûtos) took its place, except in the neuter: τόσα καὶ τόσα “so and so many” in Plato and Demosthenes, ἐκ τόσου “ever since” in Herodotus, and τόσῳ answering ὅσῳ with a comparative in Thucydides.^[2][6] Pindar, Bacchylides and Callimachus sometimes use it for the relative ὅσος.^[2][6]

Modern Greek keeps τόσος (tósos), with the diminutives τοσοδούλης (tosodoúlis) and τοσούλης (tosoúlis).^[7][4][8]

Timeline

• Mycenaean period – Linear B tablets record Mycenaean Greek to-so.^[3][4]
• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it, often as τόσσος (tóssos), for so many and so great.^[5][2]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses both the single and the double form.^[2]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for the relative “as great as”.^[2]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses ἐκ τόσου for “ever since”.^[2][6]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses τόσα καὶ τόσα for “so and so many”.^[2][6]
• Modern Greek – τόσος (tósos) continues the ancient word.^[7][4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. So great, so large, so long; in the plural, so many; also so loud, so much.^[2][6][5]
2. As great as, as many as, answered by ὅσος (hósos) or ὡς.^[2][6]
3. With numeral adverbs: τρὶς τόσσα δῶρα “three times as many gifts” (Iliad 1.213).^[2][5]
4. (poetic) For the relative ὅσος: as many as.^[2][6]
5. τόσος καὶ τόσος: such and such, of an amount one does not specify.^[6][2]
6. The neuter τόσον (tóson) as an adverb: so much, so far, so very.^[2][5]

Word family

• τόσον (tóson)
• τόσως (tósōs)
• τοσοῦτος (tosoûtos)
• τοσόσδε (tosósde)
• τοσάκις (tosákis)

Related words

• ὅσος (hósos)
• πόσος (pósos)
• Latin tot

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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
5. ^ a b c d e Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
8. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας