φῦκος

Forms

φῦκος (phûkos) n (genitive φῡ́κους); third declension^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed.^[2][3] Beekes, following Frisk, takes it as a Semitic loanword: it is perhaps borrowed from Biblical Hebrew פּוּךְ (pūk, “eye paint”) or a related Semitic word.^[4][5][1] On this view the sense “rouge” would be the original one and “seaweed” secondary.^[4][5] Chantraine rejects this order: the sense “seaweed” or “lichen” must be primary, since the word probably meant orchil, a lichen used for dyes and cosmetics, and he calls the origin uncertain.^[2] Rosół lists the Semitic etymology among the rejected ones.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Iliad has it for seaweed.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Alcman uses it for seaweed, and Aristotle distinguishes it from βρύον (brúon) by its size, and Theophrastus and Dioscorides name several kinds of seaweed with it.^[6] It also named orchil, a red dye made from a sea lichen and used by Greek women as rouge, in Aristophanes and Theocritus.^[6][7] It was borrowed as Latin fucus, “orchil, purple, rouge”, already in Plautus.^[8][2][4] Modern Greek φύκος (fýkos) is a learned word in Modern Greek.^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for seaweed.^[6][7]
• 7th century BC – Alcman uses the epic dative plural.^[6][10]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for rouge.^[6][10]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes kinds of seaweed, and Theocritus mentions rouge.^[6][10]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides names orchil and other seaweeds with it.^[6][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Seaweed, wrack; various kinds of seaweed and sea lichen.^[6][7]
2. A weed growing in a lake.^[6]
3. Orchil, a red dye made from sea lichen; rouge.^[6][7]

Word family

• φυκίον (phukíon)
• φυκίς (phukís)

Related words

• Latin fucus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
4. ^ a b c 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. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge