ἀγρός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /a.ɡrós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /aˈɣros/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /aˈɣros/^[1]

Forms

ᾰ̓γρός (agrós) m (genitive ᾰ̓γροῦ); second declension^[1] Mycenaean Greek a-ko-ro, and in the personal name Mycenaean Greek a-ko-ro-qo-ro.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *agrós, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂éǵros (“field, pasture, open land”), an old Indo-European word that first meant the uncultivated land beyond the settlement.^[2][1] Cognate with Sanskrit अज्र (ájra-), Latin ager and Old English æcer, the source of English acre;^[1] Gothic and Armenian have the same formation.^[2][1][3]

Beekes finds a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eǵ- (“to drive”), the root of ἄγω (ágō), probable.^[2][4] The DGE explains it as an r-derivative of that root, like ἀγείρω (ageírō): the Sanskrit sense “pasture for cattle” suggests that the word first named the place to which the herds were driven.^[3]

Ancient grammarians derived it from ἄγρα (ágra, “hunting”), as the place where one hunts, or from ἀρόω (aróō, “to plough”) with an added g.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean tablets write it a-ko-ro.^[2][3] In the Iliad a shepherd is out “in the country” with his sheep, and the plural names the rich fields of a land; in the Odyssey the singular is also a farm, and “in the country” is opposed to the town.^[6][3][7]

Semantic evolution

Classical prose used it for a field, a farm or a plot of land, and, without the article, for the countryside as opposed to the city; an inscription from Erythrae sets tilled land against fallow.^[8][7] From it came ἄγριος (ágrios, “wild”) and ἄγροικος (ágroikos, “rustic”), and the Homeric ἄγραυλος (ágraulos), of herdsmen who sleep in the fields; ἄγρυπνος (ágrupnos) “sleeping outdoors” came to mean sleepless.^[2]

In the New Testament it is the open country as opposed to the town, a field, and in the plural farms and hamlets.^[9][10] Modern Greek αγρός (agrós), “field”, is a learned borrowing from the ancient word.^[11][12]

Timeline

• Mycenaean period – Linear B tablets write it a-ko-ro.^[2][3]
• Homer – The Iliad uses it for the open country and for fields, the Odyssey also for a farm.^[6][3]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus and Euripides use it for the countryside as opposed to the town.^[8][7][3]
• 1st century AD – The Gospels use it for the field where people work and for the open country.^[9]
• 5th century AD – The grammarian Orion derives it from ἄγρα “hunting” or from ἀρόω “to plough”.^[5]
• Modern Greek – Modern Greek αγρός (agrós) is a learned word for a field.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A field, farm or plot of land; in the plural, fields for tillage or pasture.^[8][7]
2. Tilled land, as opposed to fallow.^[7]
3. The country, countryside, as opposed to the town.^[8][7][9]
4. (New Testament, plural) Farms, hamlets.^[9]

Word family

• ἄγριος (ágrios)
• ἄγροικος (ágroikos)
• ἀγρότης (agrótēs)
• ἀγρότερος (agróteros)
• ἄγραυλος (ágraulos)
• ἄγρυπνος (ágrupnos)
• ἀγρώστης (agrṓstēs)

Related words

• ἄγω (ágō)
• Latin ager
• English acre

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 c d e f g h Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
4. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
6. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ a b c d 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. ^ United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας