ἄνεμος

Pronunciation

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

Forms

ᾰ̓́νεμος (ánemos) m (genitive ᾰ̓νέμου); second declension^[1] Mycenaean (Knossos) Mycenaean Greek a-ne-mo, in Mycenaean Greek a-ne-mo i-je-re-ja “priestess of the winds”.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *ánemos,^[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁mos, a noun from *h₂enh₁- (“to breathe”).^[2][1] It agrees with Latin animus.^[2][4] Sanskrit अनिल (ánila, “wind, air”) has an l-suffix instead, and Old Armenian հողմ (hołm, “wind”), whose connection Wiktionary calls disputed, arose by dissimilation of n–m and has an o-vowel.^[2][4][1] Beekes suggests an original m-stem with nominative *h₂onh₁-m.^[2][4][1]

The verbal root is seen in Sanskrit ániti “breathes”, Old Irish anaid (“waits, remains”) and Gothic us-anan “to exhale”; ἄσθμα (ásthma) belongs to it too.^[2][4]

Ancient grammarians derived it from ἄημι (áēmi) “to blow”, reading the etymology into a line of the Odyssey about the “force of blowing winds”, or explained it as a privative compound, “that which does not stay”, from μένω (ménō).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Tablets from Knossos name a “priestess of the winds”.^[2][3] In Homer it is a wind or the wind, often joined with the names Boreas or Zephyrus, and in the plural the winds that drive ships and storms.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Euripides has “to give something to the winds”, to cast it away, and the comic poet Eupolis called an unstable man “a wind”.^[7] Hippocratic writers describe sudden clashes of opposing winds, and Aristotle uses κατ’ ἄνεμον for “to leeward”.^[3][7] The derivative ἀνεμία (anemía) meant flatulence in Hippocratic medicine, and Byzantine Greek used ἄνεμος itself for intestinal gas.^[2][1]

In the Septuagint and the New Testament the four winds are the four quarters of the earth, and in the Gospels Jesus stills the wind of a storm.^[8][9][10] Medieval vernacular Greek also used it for a demon and, figuratively, for anything empty or unattainable.^[11] It survives unchanged as Modern Greek άνεμος (ánemos), with phrases such as κόντρα στον άνεμο, “against the wind”, of going against the mainstream.^[12][5]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – a “priestess of the winds” at Knossos.^[2][3]
• Homer – the wind, with Boreas and Zephyrus.^[6][7]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus writes of the “breaths of the winds”, and Thucydides of a gale coming on.^[7][3]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses κατ’ ἄνεμον, “to leeward”.^[7][3]
• 1st century AD – the New Testament: the four winds, the stilling of a storm.^[9][10]
• Byzantine Greek – also intestinal gas.^[1]
• Modern Greek – άνεμος.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Wind, breeze, gale.^[9][7][1]
2. (figurative) The wind of fortune, and (plural) powerful emotions (Sophocles).^[9]
3. (plural, with “four”) The four quarters, the cardinal directions.^[9][8]
4. (Byzantine) Intestinal gas, flatulence.^[1][11]

Word family

• ἀνεμώλιος (anemṓlios)
• ἀνεμώνη (anemṓnē)
• ἠνεμόεις (ēnemóeis)
• ποδήνεμος (podḗnemos)
• προσήνεμος (prosḗnemos)
• ὑπήνεμος (hupḗnemos)
• ἀνέμη (anémē)
• ἀνεμώδης (anemṓdēs)
• νήνεμος (nḗnemos)

Related words

• ἄσθμα (ásthma)
• Latin animus
• English anemone

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
4. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
6. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
10. ^ a b 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
11. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
12. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki