ἄρτι

Forms

ᾰ̓́ρτῐ (árti) ^[1]

Etymology

In Beekes's view it is probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to fit”), as the locative of a t-stem noun meaning “order”, from the root of ἀραρίσκω (ararískō, “to fit together”).^[2][1] Its original sense was “just, fittingly”, which survives in Homeric compounds.^[3][2]

It corresponds closely to Old Armenian արդ (ard, “just now”) and to Lithuanian artì (“close by”).^[2][1] Latin ars (“skill”) recalls Homeric ἀρτίφρων (artíphrōn) and ἀρτίχειρ (artíkheir), whose first element may mean “skilful”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer does not have the adverb itself, only compounds such as ἀρτιεπής (artiepḗs) “skilled in speech”, in which ἀρτι- means “fitting, right”.^[2][3] The adverb first appears in the 6th century BC, in Theognis, meaning “just now”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In classical Greek it is a temporal adverb: “just now, lately”, mostly with a present tense and opposed to πάλαι (pálai) “long ago”, more rarely with a past tense; in tragedy and comedy it also means “only now, at last, too late”, especially of learning something.^[3][5] In later compounds ἀρτι- means “newly”.^[2]

In late Greek it was used with the future, “at once”, a use the Atticist Phrynichus condemned; the New Testament has ἀπ' ἄρτι “from now on” and ἕως ἄρτι “until now”.^[3][5] The adverb lived on in Medieval Greek and in Modern Greek dialects, and the standard language has Modern Greek άρτι (árti) “just, recently”.^[6][7]

Timeline

• 6th century BC – Theognis uses it of the present moment.^[4][5]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar and Aeschylus use it, “just now”.^[4][5]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus, Sophocles and Thucydides use it of the recent past.^[5][8]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Menander uses it of the immediate future, “at once”.^[5]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses ἀπ' ἄρτι “from now on”.^[5][9]
• 2nd century AD – Phrynichus condemns this future sense.^[3][8]

Meanings

Adverb

1. Just now, lately, a moment ago.^[5][10]
2. Right now, only just.^[5]
3. Only now, at last, too late.^[5]
4. (late) At once, right away; soon.^[5][3]
5. (Koine) At present, with ἕως ἄρτι “until now” and ἀπ' ἄρτι “from now on”.^[5][9]

Word family

• ἄρτιος (ártios)
• ἀρτιεπής (artiepḗs)
• ἀρτίφρων (artíphrōn)
• ἀπαρτί (apartí)

Related words

• ἀραρίσκω (ararískō)
• ἀρτίζω (artízō)
• Latin ars

Usage notes

Ammonius distinguishes ἄρτι, a temporal adverb, from ἀρτίως (artíōs), which properly refers to a task completely finished, though in Attic it means “this very hour”.^[11] The Atticist lexica say that ἄρτι refers to the part of the past that touches the present, the opposite of αὐτίκα (autíka), which joins the present to the future.^[12][13]

The proverb “now the mouse tastes pitch” was said of people who had suffered something terrible.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f 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
4. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
7. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
8. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
12. ^ a b Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck
13. ^ Photius, Lexicon, ed. Christos Theodoridis, vol. 1 (Α–Δ) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982); ed. Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1822)