ἀσφόδελος

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /as.pʰó.de.los/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /asˈɸo.ðe.los/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /asˈfo.ðe.los/^[1]

Forms

ἀσφόδελος (asphódelos) m (genitive ἀσφόδελου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, as its variants show: σφόδελος (sphódelos), σφοδελός (sphodelós) and σποδελός (spodelós).^[2][3] Furnée compared the plant name σφονδύλιον (sphondúlion), which would show prenasalization.^[2][1] The PHILOGLOSSA database rates the Pre-Greek origin as very reliable, while Frisk called it a foreign word of unknown origin.^[4][5] The DGE mentions a possible “Pelasgian” word from a root meaning “to swell”, and a comparison with Sanskrit that meets phonetic difficulties.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hesiod's Works and Days names mallow and asphodel as the poor man's food, whose value fools do not know.^[7][8][4] Homer has only the adjective ἀσφοδελός (asphodelós), in the “asphodel meadow” of the underworld where the shades of the heroes walk.^[7][1]

Semantic evolution

Ammonius distinguishes the two by their accent: ἀσφόδελος is the plant, ἀσφοδελός the place in Homer.^[9][10] The plant was a cheap food.^[8] Aristarchus, cited by Hesychius, says its root was edible.^[8][10] Theophrastus and Dioscorides describe it, and the Hippocratic writers, Nicander and Galen use it in medicines, among them antidotes to snakebite.^[6][7]

Latin borrowed it as asphodelus, which gave English asphodel in the late 14th century; through Medieval Latin affodillus it is also the source of daffodil.^[11][1] Modern Greek ασφόδελος (asfódelos) is a learned word, and the “asphodel meadow” still stands for the underworld.^[12]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey places the shades of the dead in the “asphodel meadow”.^[7]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod names asphodel as a poor man's food.^[7][8]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle mentions the plant.^[7][4]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus describes it.^[7][6]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides gives its medical uses.^[7][6]
• Late 14th century – English borrows asphodel from Latin.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. asphodel, Asphodelus ramosus, a plant of the lily family eaten as cheap food and used in medicine.^[7][8][6]

Related words

• Latin asphodelus
• English asphodel
• English daffodil

Usage notes

The oxytone adjective ἀσφοδελός “of asphodel, flowery”, in the Homeric κατ᾽ ἀσφοδελὸν λειμῶνα, was kept apart from the plant name by its accent, as Ammonius and Hesychius note.^[9][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
5. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ a b [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
10. ^ a b c Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki