ἀμνός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /am.nós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /amˈnos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /amˈnos/^[1]

Forms

ᾰ̓μνός (amnós) m or f (genitive ᾰ̓ρνός or ᾰ̓μνοῦ, feminine ᾰ̓μνή or ᾰ̓μνῐ́ς); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *abnós, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂egʷnós (“lamb”).^[1][2] Cognate with Latin agnus, Old Irish úan, Old Church Slavonic агнѧ (agnę) and Albanian enjë;^[2][1] the Germanic verb, as Old English ēanian (“to lamb”) and its descendant yean, seems to require a different final consonant.^[2][1] LSJ notes a written form ⟨ἀβνός⟩.^[3]

Ancient grammarians derived it from the negative prefix ἀ- and μένος (ménos, “strength”), as a creature without strength, or from a word for down, the soft wool of the newborn.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its earliest record is a fragment of Sophocles, meaning a lamb.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Aristophanes used it of people who were “lambs in temper”, meek or simple.^[3][5] The oblique cases were usually taken from ἀρήν (arḗn), and Theocritus used the word as a feminine.^[3] The Septuagint used it about a hundred times, mostly for the sacrificial he-lamb.^[6]

In the New Testament it is used only of Christ: the Gospel of John calls Jesus “the Lamb of God”, and the First Epistle of Peter speaks of a lamb without blemish, both recalling sacrifice.^[7][8] It survives as Modern Greek αμνός (amnós), a learned word, from Ancient Greek, with the Christian sense.^[9][8]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it for a lamb.^[3][2]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it figuratively of meek people.^[3][5]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses it as a feminine.^[3][10]
• 3rd century BC – The Septuagint uses it for sacrificial lambs.^[6][11]
• 1st century AD – The Gospel of John calls Jesus “the Lamb of God”.^[7][3]
• Modern Greek – It is used as Modern Greek αμνός (amnós), a learned word.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A lamb.^[3][5]
2. (figurative) A meek or simple person.^[5][3]
3. (New Testament) Christ as the Lamb of God, a sacrificial lamb.^[7][5]

Word family

• ἀμνίον (amníon)

Related words

• ἀμνή (amnḗ)
• ἀρήν (arḗn)
• Latin agnus

Usage notes

Aristophanes used it with κάμηλος (kámēlos) for the young of a camel.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
5. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
7. ^ a b c 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
8. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
11. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux