ἄβυσσος

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /á.bys.sos/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈa.βys.sos/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈa.vys.sos/^[1]

Forms

ἄβῠσσος (ábussos) m or f (neuter ἄβυσσον); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a compound of the privative prefix and the noun for the depth of the sea, from Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-) + βυσσός (bussós, “depth of the sea”), literally “bottomless”.^[2][3][4] The DGE starts from a form *βύθιος (*búthios) instead.^[5] Beekes considers βυσσός and its variant βυθός (buthós) Pre-Greek, because the variation ⟨θ⟩ / ⟨σσ⟩ and the suffix of the related gloss βύσσαλοι (bússaloi, “pits”) are typical of the substrate.^[2] Frisk had explained βυσσός from *βυθι̯ός (*buthiós) and linked it with βαθύς (bathús, “deep”), which Beekes rejects.^[2][3]

Wiktionary compares Sanskrit अगाध (agādha, “fathomless”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus uses it of the springs of the Nile, which he calls bottomless.^[6][5] Aeschylus has “a bottomless sea of ruin”, and Euripides the chasms of Tartarus.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Greek it is an adjective, “bottomless”, and figuratively “boundless”, of wealth in Aeschylus and of money in Aristophanes.^[6][4]

The Septuagint made the feminine a noun, ἡ ἄβυσσος, for the primeval deep over which darkness lay at the creation, translating Hebrew təhōm; it also means the waters under the earth and the realm of the dead.^[7][2][5] In the New Testament the abyss is the prison of demons and of the beast and the abode of the dead.^[8][5] The magical papyri invoke it beside Olympus, and the Church Fathers speak of the “abyss” of God's teaching.^[5][6]

Latin borrowed the noun as abyssus.^[1] Medieval vernacular Greek used it for chaos, the underworld and the sea.^[9] Modern Greek άβυσσος (ávyssos) is a learned word; its scientific sense of the ocean deep is modelled on French abysse or English abyss.^[10]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus calls the springs of the Nile bottomless.^[6][5]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it figuratively of a sea of ruin and of boundless wealth.^[6][5]
• 3rd–1st century BC – The Septuagint uses the feminine as a noun for the primeval deep of Genesis.^[7][5]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for the abode of the dead and of demons.^[8]
• 12th–17th century – Vernacular Greek uses it for chaos, the underworld and the sea.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. bottomless, unfathomed.^[6][4]
2. (figurative) Boundless, unfathomable.^[6][5]

Noun

1. (Septuagint) The great deep, the primeval abyss of waters.^[7][5]
2. (New Testament) The underworld, abode of the dead and of demons.^[8][6]
3. (magical papyri) The infinite void.^[6]

Related words

• βυσσός (bussós)
• βυθός (buthós)
• Latin abyssus
• English abyss

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki