ἄκος
Pronunciation
- 5th-century BC Attic: /á.kos/[1]
- 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈa.kos/[1]
- 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈa.kos/[1]
Forms
ᾰ̓́κος (ákos) n (genitive ᾰ̓́κους or ἄκεος); third declension[1] Mycenaean Greek a2-ke-te-re and ja-ke-te-re, read as words for healers.[2][1]
Etymology
Beekes calls its origin unknown.[2] The compounds in ⟨ἀφ-⟩ and ⟨ἐφ-⟩ and the Mycenaean form with ⟨j⟩ point to an original initial /j/, so the usual forms without /h/ may be epic or Ionic;[2][3] Beekes rejects Chantraine's reconstruction and suggests a root *Hieh₂ḱ-.[2] Wiktionary gives Proto-Indo-European *(H)yeh₂k- (“cure”) as a possible source.[1] A link with Old Irish ícc (“healing”) and Welsh iach (“healthy”) has been suggested, but the relation between the Celtic words is uncertain.[2][4][1]
Ancient writers derived it from ἀκή (akḗ, “point”), the blade of the surgeon, or from ἄχος (ákhos, “pain”), as that which cures pain.[5]
Earliest recorded meaning
It is first found in the Iliad, meaning a cure or remedy; the Odyssey speaks of a remedy for evils.[6][7][8]
Semantic evolution
The word belonged to poetry and Ionic prose: Pindar, Herodotus and the tragedians used it for a cure or relief from sufferings, troubles or mistakes, usually with a genitive.[9][6] The medical sense is clear in the Hippocratic writings, and Aeschylus and Euripides used the medical metaphor of “cutting” a remedy.[6][3] Euripides extended it to any means of obtaining something.[6]
Its denominative ἀκέομαι (akéomai, “to heal, repair”) gave many derivatives, among them ἀκεστής (akestḗs, “tailor”).[2] The compound πανάκεια (panákeia, “universal remedy”) grew from πάνακες (pánakes), the name of several healing plants.[3]
Timeline
- Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for a remedy.[6][7]
- 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses the metaphor of cutting a remedy.[6][4]
- 5th century BC – Herodotus speaks of seeking a remedy.[4][6][9]
- 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writings use it in a medical sense.[6][3]
- 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses the plural with a dative for remedies for something.[6][4]
Meanings
Noun
- A cure, remedy, in medicine or figuratively.[6][9]
- Relief or a solution for troubles or mistakes.[9][4]
- A means of obtaining something.[6]
Word family
- ἀκέομαι (akéomai)
- ἄκεσις (ákesis)
- ἀκεστής (akestḗs)
- ἀκέσματα (akésmata)
- πανάκεια (panákeia)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f 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
- ^ a b c d 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
- ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
- ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
- ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
- ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press