ἀπόλλυμι

Forms

ᾰ̓πόλλῡμῐ (apóllūmi) ^[1] Also present ἀπολλύω (apollúō) (Thucydides on), a form the Atticists rejected; future ἀπολῶ (apolô) (also ἀπολέσω (apolésō), Ionic ἀπολέω (apoléō)), aorist ἀπώλεσα (apṓlesa) (epic ἀπόλεσσα (apólessa)), perfect ἀπολώλεκα (apolṓleka).^[2][3] Middle ἀπόλλυμαι (apóllumai) “perish”: future ἀπολοῦμαι (apoloûmai), aorist ἀπωλόμην (apōlómēn), and the intransitive perfect ἀπόλωλα (apólōla) “I am lost, I am undone”.^[2][4][5]

Etymology

It is formed from Ancient Greek ἀπο- (apo-, “away, off”) + ὄλλυμι (óllumi, “to destroy, lose”).^[1][5] The simple verb is used only in Homer, the poets and late prose, and Attic prose has only the compound, in which the prefix stresses that the action is carried through to its end.^[6][7]

ὄλλυμι (óllumi) comes from *ὄλνυμι (*ólnumi), a present with the suffix ⟨-νυ-⟩ beside the aorist ὀλέσαι (olésai), as στόρνυμι (stórnumi) stands beside στορέσαι (storésai).^[7][6] Beekes and the LIV derive it from Proto-Indo-European *h₃elh₁- (“to perish, destroy”), and Beekes also considers *h₁elh₃-.^[7][8] They compare Latin aboleō and dēleō, Hittite ḫallanna- (“to trample down”) and Tocharian B alāṣṣäṃ (“is exhausted”).^[7][8] Chantraine rejects the Latin comparison and finds no plausible etymology outside Greek.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is frequent from the first book of the Iliad on, where the middle ἀπολέσθαι (apolésthai) means to perish (1.117).^[9][2] In Homer the active is used mostly of killing in battle (“he destroyed the host of the Achaeans”, Iliad 5.758), of laying waste a city, and of losing someone or something: Telemachus has lost his noble father (Odyssey 2.46).^[2][10][3]

Semantic evolution

In Attic the active ranges from killing and demolishing to ruining people, fortunes and cities, and the future in curses (“may the gods destroy you”).^[3][2] Comedy and tragedy use it of talking or questioning someone to death, Aristophanes' “you'll be the death of me”, and Lysias of an adulterer who ruins a man's wife.^[2][3] “To lose” covers both losing by death and losing a possession, a homecoming or one's life.^[2][3] The middle and the perfect ἀπόλωλα (apólōla) mean to perish, to be lost or to be undone, and of things to vanish: laughter “has perished from among men”, says Xenophon.^[2][5]

In the Septuagint it renders Biblical Hebrew אבד (ʾbd) and some thirty-seven other Hebrew words.^[11] The New Testament gives the middle a theological sense, to be lost eternally: “those who are perishing” are set against “those who are being saved”, and the lost sheep becomes an image of people far from God.^[2][11][4] Revelation names the angel of the abyss Ἀπολλύων (Apollúōn), “the Destroyer”, a present participle of ἀπολλύω (apollúō) that renders the Hebrew name Abaddon.^[4][12][13]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses the middle for perishing and the active for killing in battle and laying waste a city; the Odyssey also uses it for losing a father.^[2][10]
• 6th century BC – Hipponax uses it in a curse.^[3][14]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles and Aristophanes use it of talking a person to death.^[2][3]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides has the present in ⟨-ύω⟩.^[2][3]
• 5th–4th century BC – Lysias uses it of a man who seduces another's wife.^[2][3]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses the middle of eternal ruin, and Revelation names the Destroyer Ἀπολλύων (Apollúōn).^[2][4]
• 2nd century AD – The Atticist Phrynichus rejects the present ἀπολλύω (apollúō).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To destroy utterly, kill, especially in battle; of things, to demolish, lay waste.^[2][3]
2. To ruin people, cities or fortunes; in curses, of the gods.^[3][2]
3. (colloquial) To be the death of someone with talk or questions.^[2][3]
4. To corrupt (another man's wife).^[3][2]
5. To lose: a relative or companion by death, one's life, one's homecoming, a possession.^[2][3]
6. (middle and perfect ἀπόλωλα (apólōla)) To perish, die; to be undone; of things, to be lost, vanish, cease.^[2][3]
7. (New Testament) (middle) To be lost in the religious sense, to perish eternally.^[2][4][15]

Word family

• ἀπολλύω (apollúō)
• Ἀπολλύων (Apollúōn)
• ἀπόλεσις (apólesis)
• ἐξαπόλλυμι (exapóllumi)
• συναπόλλυμι (sunapóllumi)
• προσαπόλλυμι (prosapóllumi)

Related words

• ὄλλυμι (óllumi)
• ὄλεθρος (ólethros)
• ὀλοός (oloós)
• Latin aboleō

Usage notes

Ἀπολλύων (Apollúōn) in Revelation 9:11 is a name made by the author, “Destroyer”, as a Greek rendering of Abaddon; whether it alludes to the god Apollo cannot be decided.^[4][12]

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 m n o p q r s t u v 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 o Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f 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
5. ^ a b c Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Βασικό Λεξικό της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής, Portal for the Greek Language, https://www.greek-language.gr
6. ^ a b c 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
7. ^ a b c d 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
8. ^ a b Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
9. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
11. ^ a b Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark
12. ^ a b Thayer, Joseph Henry (1889), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, New York: American Book Company
13. ^ Strong, James (1890), A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament, in The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, New York: Hunt & Eaton
14. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
15. ^ United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.