ἀκόνιτον

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /a.kó.niː.ton/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /aˈko.ni.ton/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /aˈko.ni.ton/^[1]

Forms

ᾰ̓κόνῑτον (akónīton) n (genitive ᾰ̓κονῑ́του); second declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][1] Beekes tentatively considers it Pre-Greek, and holds that a substrate word is probable in any case.^[3][4] Furnée connected it with κονή (konḗ) and κῶνος (kônos, “pine cone”).^[3]

Ancient writers derived it from ἀκονιτί (akonití, “without dust”), that is, without a struggle in the wrestling ground, so that the plant would be the “unconquerable” one, against whose deadly effect no one can win.^[3][5][6] Beekes and Frisk find this semantically hardly possible, and the DGE treats it as a folk etymology.^[3][5][2] The Etymologicum Magnum also offers a place name: the plant would be named after the Akonai mountains of the Mariandyni, where it grew.^[7] Scarborough's database rates the Pre-Greek explanation of medium reliability.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in the 4th century BC, in the historian Theopompus, as the name of a poisonous plant, leopard's bane (Aconitum anthora).^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

Theophrastus uses the name for poisonous plants, and the DGE takes his ἀκόνιτον for henbane.^[2][3] Dioscorides, in the 1st century AD, distinguishes leopard's bane from wolf's bane (Aconitum napellus), and Galen too writes of the plant.^[9][2] Which poisonous plants these names meant is not known for certain.^[10] A feminine form ἀκόνιτος is found in some poets.^[9]

It was borrowed into Latin as aconītum, used in the plural by Ovid and Juvenal for poison in general.^[11][2]

Timeline

• 4th century BC – Theopompus mentions the poisonous plant.^[9][2]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses the name in his Enquiry into Plants.^[9][2]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides describes leopard's bane and wolf's bane under this name.^[9][2]
• 2nd century AD – Galen writes of the plant in his medical works.^[9][12]
• 12th century AD – The Etymologicum Magnum derives the name from the Akonai mountains or from a plant that cannot be defeated.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Leopard's bane, Aconitum anthora, a poisonous plant.^[9][2]
2. Wolf's bane, aconite, Aconitum napellus.^[9][2]
3. Possibly henbane, Hyoscyamus, in Theophrastus.^[2]

Related words

• ἀκονιτί (akonití)
• Latin aconitum

Usage notes

Zonaras quotes a line playing on the supposed etymology: someone who drank ἀκόνιτον escaped it ἀκονιτί, “without effort”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
3. ^ a b c d e 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
4. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
7. ^ a b Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
12. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux