Etymologically
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χθαμαλός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kʰtʰa.ma.lós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /xθa.maˈlos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /xθa.maˈlos/[1]

Forms

χθᾰμᾰλός (khthamalós) m (feminine χθᾰμᾰλή, neuter χθᾰμᾰλόν); first/second declension[1]

Etymology

It is built on the old word for earth, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰéǵʰōm (“earth”), which also gave χθών (khthṓn) and χαμαί (khamaí, “on the ground”).[2][1][3] It is one of the few Greek forms that keep the stem's /m/, from the zero grade *dʰǵʰm-, which Greek turned into χθ- by moving the dental after the velar.[2] The suffix is -αλός (-alós), as in ἁπαλός (hapalós, “soft”).[4][5]

Latin humilis (“low”) and Phrygian ζεμελως (zemelōs, “man”) are the same formation.[2][1] Other relatives of the noun are Hittite tēkan (“earth”), Sanskrit क्षम् (kṣam, “earth”), Latin humus (“ground”) and Lithuanian žẽmė (“earth”).[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it means low, near the ground: a wall built lowest at one point in the Iliad, beds made on the ground, and one of the two rocks of Scylla and Charybdis lower than the other in the Odyssey.[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

The Odyssey also calls Ithaca and Circe's island χθαμαλή, of which the sense in the Ithaca passage is disputed.[7][6] Later it is used of low hills and buildings, in Xenophon and Polybius, and of low-lying lands such as Egypt in Theocritus.[7][8]

In late Greek it became metaphorical: Themistius uses it of people of humble station, and Hesychius glosses it as “lowly”, “level” and “hollow”.[7][9][10] The prolegomena to Theocritus use it of the relaxed, pedestrian Doric of the poems.[7]

Modern Greek χθαμαλός (chthamalós) is a learned word for low-lying ground, and also means humble in a figurative sense.[11][12]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses the superlative of a wall built lowest, and the Odyssey uses it of beds on the ground and of low islands.[6][7]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon advises building lower on the north side of a house.[7][13]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it of low hills.[7][13]
  • 4th century AD – Themistius applies it to people of humble station.[7][13]
  • Modern Greek – It survives as a learned word for low ground.[11][12]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. On the ground, close to the ground: of a bed or a stool.[8][7]
  2. Low, of a wall, rock, hill or tree.[7][8]
  3. Of an island or a region: low-lying.[8][7]
  4. (late, figurative) Of persons: of humble station, lowly.[7][9]
  5. (late) Of style: plain, pedestrian.[7]

Word family

  • χθαμαλότης (khthamalótēs)
  • χθών (khthṓn)
  • χαμαί (khamaí)
  • χαμηλός (khamēlós)
  • Latin humilis

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ 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. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  5. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
  6. ^ a b c Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ a b Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
  10. ^ Zalizniak, Anna A., et al. (2024), Database of Semantic Shifts (DatSemShift), Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, https://datsemshift.ru
  11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  12. ^ a b Ακαδημία Αθηνών (2014), Χρηστικό Λεξικό της Νεοελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Academy of Athens
  13. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge