φηγός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /pʰɛː.ɡós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ɸiˈɣos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /fiˈɣos/^[1]

Forms

φηγός (phēgós) f (genitive φηγοῦ); second declension^[1] Doric φᾱγός (phāgós).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *pʰāgós, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵos (“beech”).^[1][4][5] It is identical with Latin fāgus (“beech”) and with the Germanic words, Old Norse bók and Old High German buohha “beech” and Gothic 𐌱𐍉𐌺𐌰 (bōka, “letter”).^[4][6] The beech is rare in most of Greece, as a tree of cold and damp country, so the inherited name passed to a kind of oak, and the Greeks then called the beech ὀξύα (oxúa), a word built on the Indo-European name of the ash.^[4][6][7] The beech name has long been part of the debate on the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans.^[4][6]

Ancient writers derived it from φαγεῖν (phageîn, “to eat”), because people ate acorns before cereals were known;^[8] Chantraine judges that a link between the beech name and that verb can be neither proved nor refuted.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is frequent in the Iliad but absent from the Odyssey.^[2] The Iliad names an oak sacred to Zeus, and an oak near the Scaean gate of Troy that serves as a landmark on the plain.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Classical writers use it for the ancient sacred oak of Dodona: Herodotus, Sophocles' Trachiniae and Callimachus call it so.^[2][3] Theophrastus identifies it as a particular wild oak, the valonia oak.^[2] In the plural it also means the acorns of this tree, roasted and eaten in Aristophanes and Plato, and in Apollonius of Rhodes eaten raw by the earliest men.^[2][3]

Modern Greek has it as a learned word, Modern Greek φηγός (figós), with the meaning “beech” that the Indo-European word had.^[11]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it of the oak of Zeus by the Scaean gate.^[9][2]
• Before the 6th century BC – A Hesiodic fragment names the oak of Dodona.^[2][12]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Sophocles use it for the oracular oak of Dodona.^[3][2][12]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes and Plato use it for roasted acorns.^[2][3][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes it as a wild oak, the valonia oak.^[2][12]
• Modern Greek – The learned φηγός (figós) means “beech”.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kind of oak, the valonia oak (Quercus aegilops), with edible acorns.^[2][3]
2. The sacred oak of Dodona.^[3][2]
3. (plural or collective) The acorns of this oak, roasted for food.^[2][3]

Word family

• φήγινος (phḗginos)

Related words

• ὀξύα (oxúa)
• δρῦς (drûs)
• Latin fāgus
• English beech

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 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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d 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
5. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
8. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
9. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ Autenrieth, Georg (1891), A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, tr. Robert P. Keep, New York: Harper and Brothers
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge