ἄρτος
Pronunciation
- 5th-century BC Attic: /ár.tos/[1]
- 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈar.tos/[1]
- 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈar.tos/[1]
Forms
ᾰ̓́ρτος (ártos) m (genitive ᾰ̓́ρτου); second declension[1]
Etymology
It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *ártos, of unknown further origin.[1][2] Mycenaean already has it in the compound Mycenaean Greek a-to-po-qo (“baker”).[1][3] Several explanations have been proposed, none of them established:[4][5]
- a derivative of the root of ἀραρίσκω (ararískō, “to fit, prepare”), as Prellwitz thought;[4] Beekes calls it improbable;[4][2]
- a borrowing from Iranian, comparing Persian آرد (ârd, “flour”), as Pisani proposed;[4][2] Beekes considers it impossible for a word already found in Mycenaean, and Chantraine improbable;[2][4][1]
- a substrate word, with Basque arto (“maize bread”) and Old Spanish artal (“a kind of pie”), as Hubschmid thought, although the Basque word could be borrowed from Greek.[2][1][5]
Earliest recorded meaning
The Odyssey is its first literary record: a whole loaf is taken from a basket.[6][5][7]
Semantic evolution
In the plural it is usually a loaf of wheat bread, opposed to the barley μᾶζα (mâza), and in the singular bread in general, food or a meal, in Solon, Herodotus and Thucydides.[6][8] In the New Testament it is the bread of the Lord's Supper and the bread offered in the sanctuary, the showbread.[9]
Medieval vernacular Greek kept the word.[10] Modern Greek άρτος (ártos) is a learned word for bread, which is everyday ψωμί, and also for the consecrated bread of the Church.[11]
Timeline
- Mycenaean period – The tablets have a-to-po-qo “baker”.[1][3]
- Homer – The Odyssey uses it for loaves of bread.[6][7]
- Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it in the Works and Days.[7][5]
- 5th century BC – Herodotus and Thucydides use it for bread.[8][7][5]
- 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it for the bread of the Lord's Supper.[9]
- Modern Greek – άρτος is a learned word for bread and for church bread.[11]
Meanings
Noun
- A loaf of bread, usually of wheat.[6][8]
- Bread; by extension, food, a meal.[8][6]
- (New Testament) The bread of the Eucharist; the showbread of the Temple.[9]
Word family
- ἀρτοκόπος (artokópos)
- ἀρτοποιός (artopoiós)
- ἀρτοπώλης (artopṓlēs)
- ἀρτοπώλιον (artopṓlion)
- ἀρτόπωλις (artópōlis)
- ἀρτοφαγέω (artophagéō)
- ἀρτοθήκη (artothḗkē)
- ἀρτολάγανον (artoláganon)
- ἀρτουργός (artourgós)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e 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 Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
- ^ a b c d e 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
- ^ a b c d e Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c d 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
- ^ 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
- ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
- ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki