ἀνά

Forms

ᾰ̓νᾰ́ (aná) (governs the genitive, dative, and accusative)^[1] By apocope ἄν (before dentals), assimilated to ἄγ before gutturals and ἄμ before labials, Aeolic, Thessalian, Arcadian and Cypriot ὀν.^[2][3][4] Mycenaean uses it as a prefix, as in a-na-ke-e /an-agehen/, an infinitive.^[5][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *aná, an old adverb that Greek shares with Iranian and Germanic: Avestan ana and Old Persian anā “along, on”, Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌰 (ana), Old High German ana and Old English on “on”.^[5][6][4] Chantraine counts these as the only certain comparisons.^[4] Frisk and Beekes add, as possible, the prefix of Latin anhēlō and Armenian ⟨am-⟩ in Old Armenian ամբառնամ (ambaṙnam, “to raise”), and keep Sanskrit अनु (ánu, “along”) apart.^[6][5]

Beekes traces it to Proto-Indo-European *h₂en- (“up, on high”).^[5] Wiktionary objects that this root does not explain the second syllable, and gives Lipp's reconstruction *áno (“up, over, along”), with /o/ > /a/ by the vowel harmony also seen in παρά (pará), κατά (katá) and μάλα (mála).^[1] The dialect form ὀν (on) points to a pre-form with a syllabic nasal, according to the DGE.^[7] Beside it stands the adverb ἄνω (ánō, “upward”).^[5][6]

Burkert compared Akkadian ana “to, for”, which is also distributive with numbers, but Rosół lists this among the rejected Semitic etymologies.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is used from Homer on, as an adverb and as a preposition with the genitive, dative and accusative.^[5][2] The basic notion is “from below upward”, and Homer has it with the dative for something resting up on a thing, a sceptre or a mountain top.^[4][3][2] Standing alone and accented ἄνα, it means “up!”, “stand up!”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

With the genitive it is rare: three times in the Odyssey, in the phrase “to go on board ship”, and in an inscription from Halaesa in Sicily.^[2][4] With the dative it belongs to epic and lyric verse, and in tragedy only to the lyric parts.^[2] In Ionic and Attic prose it governs only the accusative, and its senses grew out of “up through”: movement up or along (up a river), extent throughout a place or a period of time, and a distributive use, “at the rate of, so many each”.^[4][3] Set phrases are ἀνὰ λόγον (anà lógon, “in proportion”) and ἀνὰ κράτος (anà krátos, “with all one's might”).^[3][4]

As a prefix it is very productive: “up” in ἀναβαίνω (anabaínō) and ἀναβλέπω (anablépō), “back, again” in other verbs, and perhaps by way of ἀνανεύω (ananeúō) “throw the head back” the idea of refusal.^[4]

The preposition was already very rare in late Greek.^[4][9] Hellenistic and New Testament Greek used the phrase ἀνὰ μέσον (anà méson) “in the middle of, between”, and the distributive sense, as in “two by two”.^[9] Medieval Greek kept the word.^[10] In Modern Greek ανά (aná) is a learned preposition with the accusative, mostly distributive, “by, per”.^[11]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it with the dative, accusative and genitive, and alone as “up!”.^[2][4][12]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of time and frequency, as in “every day”.^[3][7]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it distributively, of troops placed in groups of a given size.^[3][7]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses ἀνὰ μέσον (anà méson) and the distributive sense, though the preposition is rare by then.^[9]
• Modern Greek – The learned preposition ανά (aná) expresses distribution.^[11]

Meanings

Preposition

1. (with the genitive, rare) On board: “to go up on board ship”.^[2][4]
2. (with the dative, poetic) Up on, upon, of something at rest.^[2][3]
3. (with the accusative) Up along, up through: up a pillar, up a river.^[3][2]
4. (with the accusative) Throughout, all over a place or among a group.^[3]
5. (with the accusative) Of time: during, throughout; at a given frequency (“each day”, “each year”).^[3][4]
6. (with the accusative) Distributive: so many at a time, at the rate of, ἀνὰ λόγον “in proportion”.^[3][4]
7. (with the accusative) Of manner: ἀνὰ κράτος “with all one's might”.^[3]

Adverb

1. (Homeric) Thereon; and, accented ἄνα, “up!”, “arise!”.^[3][4]

Word family

• ἄνω (ánō)
• ἄνωθεν (ánōthen)
• ἀναβαίνω (anabaínō)
• ἀναβλέπω (anablépō)
• ἀνανεύω (ananeúō)

Related words

• Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌰 (ana)
• Old English on

Usage notes

As a preverb it means “up” (going up, looking up), “back” and “again”.^[4] In verse it can follow its noun, with the accent thrown back.^[3]

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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
8. ^ Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
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