Etymologically
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φόνος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pʰó.nos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈɸo.nos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈfo.nos/[1]

Forms

φόνος (phónos) m (genitive φόνου); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *kʷʰónos (“murder”),[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰónos (“killing”), an o-grade verbal noun from the root *gʷʰen- (“to strike”) of θείνω (theínō, “to strike”) and of the aorist πεφνεῖν (pephneîn, “to slay”).[2][1][3] Before /o/ the initial labiovelar is represented by φ.[4] Chantraine explains the meaning “kill” as a euphemistic use of “strike, fell”.[5]

Cognate with Serbo-Croatian gȍn “a stretch over which a horse is driven”, Czech hon (“hunt”) and, as agent nouns like the Greek compounds in -φόνος (-phónos), Lithuanian gãnas (“herdsman”) (“the driver”); Beekes notes that these may be independent formations.[2] The root's verb is continued in Hittite kuenzi (“strikes”), and it is also found in Latin dēfendō (“to ward off”).[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad and the Odyssey it means slaughter in battle and the killing of a person, as when the suitors plot murder.[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Homer and the poets also used it concretely: a cause of death, the carnage of a battlefield, spilled blood, and in Euripides a murdered body.[10][2] In Herodotus, tragedy and Attic prose it was murder as a crime, and in the orators and Plato homicide as a legal charge, with unintentional killing distinguished as manslaughter.[10][8] Greek feelings and customs about homicide changed greatly in the early historical period, as the right and duty of private revenge gave way to public justice.[11]

In the New Testament it is murder, often in lists of vices.[12] Coptic borrowed it as ⲫⲟⲛⲟⲥ (phonos).[13] Modern Greek φόνος (fónos) is a learned word for murder, in law premeditated homicide.[14]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for slaughter and killing.[7][8]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for murder and for a general massacre.[10][8][15]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato and the Attic orators use it for homicide as a legal charge.[10][8][15]
  • New Testament – The Gospels of Mark and Luke use it for murder.[12]
  • Modern Greek – Modern Greek φόνος (fónos) is a learned word for murder.[14][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Killing, slaughter, of people or of sacrificial animals.[8][10]
  2. Murder as a crime, and in law homicide.[10][8]
  3. Death as something dealt or escaped.[10]
  4. (poetic) A bringer of death: a weapon or person causing death.[10]
  5. (poetic) Carnage; spilled blood, gore; a murdered body.[10][2]

Word family

  • ἀνδροφόνος (androphónos)
  • βουφόνος (bouphónos)
  • δολοφονία (dolophonía)
  • δολοφόνος (dolophónos)
  • φονάω (phonáō)
  • φονεύς (phoneús)
  • φονεύω (phoneúō)
  • φονικός (phonikós)
  • φόνιος (phónios)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
  4. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
  5. ^ a b 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
  6. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  7. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  11. ^ Smith, William; Wayte, William; Marindin, G. E., eds. (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 3rd ed., London: John Murray
  12. ^ 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
  13. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
  14. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  15. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge