χορδή

Forms

χορδή (khordḗ) f (genitive χορδῆς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

In Beekes's view it is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰorH- (“intestine”), an Indo-European word for the intestine, though no exact match exists outside Greek.^[2] A formation in -n- is found in Lithuanian žárna (“gut”), Old Norse gǫrn (“gut”) and Old High German garn (“yarn”) (made of dried gut), and one without it in Latin haruspex (“soothsayer”) and Sanskrit हिरा (hirā́, “vein”).^[2][3] Because the -n- forms are so common, Frisk and Beekes mention the proposal that χορδή is an irregular development of *χορνή (*khornḗ), its -δ- taken over from a word of related meaning such as καρδία (kardíā, “heart”).^[2][3] Beekes doubts that Latin hernia (“rupture”) and Albanian zorrë (“gut”) belong here, because of their initial consonant.^[2][1]

Chantraine prefers Laroche's comparison with Hittite karad- (“intestines”), which matches exactly if χορδή comes from *χοροδή (*khorodḗ) by syncope, though the Hittite vowel may instead be a later insertion or a matter of spelling.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first occurs in the Odyssey, for a string of gut on a lyre.^[6][7][2]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense was gut: comedy uses the plural for tripe, and the singular for a sausage or black pudding, and Aristophanes puns on the two senses of the word in the Frogs.^[6][4] Already in Homer it was the string of gut stretched on a lyre or harp, and this became its main sense; from it Plato uses it of a musical note, and Polybius too.^[6][4] Many compounds name instruments by their number of strings, such as ἑπτάχορδος (heptákhordos) “seven-stringed”.^[2][4]

Latin borrowed it as chorda, “string of a musical instrument”.^[8] In the New Testament period it is still the string of the cithara.^[9] Coptic borrowed it as well.^[10] In Modern Greek χορδή (chordí), a learned word, keeps the strings of instruments and bows; the geometrical chord and the figurative “heartstrings” are semantic loans from French corde.^[11]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey uses it for a string of gut on a lyre.^[6][7]
• 6th century BC – The Homeric Hymn to Hermes uses it for lyre strings.^[6][7][12]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar speaks of Aeolian strings.^[6][7]
• 5th century BC – Cratinus and Aristophanes use it for a sausage, and Pherecrates for guts.^[6][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato speaks of tightening and slackening the strings, and uses the word for a musical note.^[6]
• Modern Greek – The learned word χορδή (chordí) means a string, and also a geometrical chord.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (plural) Guts, tripe.^[6][7]
2. A string of gut; especially the string of a lyre or harp.^[6][7]
3. A musical note.^[6][7]
4. A sausage or black pudding.^[6][7]

Word family

• ἀκροχορδών (akrokhordṓn)
• ἑνδεκάχορδος (hendekákhordos)
• εὔχορδος (eúkhordos)
• παραχορδίζω (parakhordízō)
• πολύχορδος (polúkhordos)
• πρόσχορδος (próskhordos)
• χορδεύω (khordeúō)
• ἀντίχορδος (antíkhordos)
• ἔγχορδος (énkhordos)
• ἐκχορδόομαι (ekkhordóomai)
• ἐπιχορδίς (epikhordís)

Related words

• Latin chorda

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ^ 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
10. ^ Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux