ἄτρακτος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /á.trak.tos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈa.trak.tos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈa.trak.tos/^[1]

Forms

ἄτρακτος (átraktos) m or f (genitive ἀτράκτου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, a loan from the substrate.^[2][3] He finds support in the Hesychian form ἄδρακτος (ádraktos), with the variation of /t/ and /d/ found in Pre-Greek words, and perhaps in ἀτρακίς (atrakís), a kind of thistle, if the variation of ⟨κ⟩ and ⟨κτ⟩ is old.^[3][2]

It has often been derived from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to twist”), with the cognates Sanskrit तर्कु (tarku, “spindle”), Latin torqueō (“to twist”) and Albanian tjerr (“to spin”).^[1][4][5][6] Beekes rejects this, since a /kʷ/ would give π before /o/ and the initial ἀ- would remain unexplained, and he notes that the Sanskrit word comes from a Sanskrit root meaning “to turn” and is unrelated.^[2][1] The DGE assumes a loss of the labial element of /kʷ/ in Greek, and Babiniotis takes the ἀ- as a prothetic vowel.^[4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is a lyric fragment of Sappho or Alcaeus, in the sense of a spindle.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The spindle was the word's main sense: Herodotus uses it for spinning, and Plato's Republic speaks of the spindle of Necessity.^[6][7] In tragedy it is an arrow, and Thucydides reports that the Spartans used the word in that sense.^[6][7][2] Hippocratic writers used it for a spindle-shaped cautery, and Pollux for the top of a ship's mast.^[6] Though masculine in classical Greek, it is feminine in Plutarch and in Hellenistic Greek.^[6][8]

The diminutive ἀδράκτιον (adráktion) lives on in the vernacular Modern Greek αδράχτι (adráchti, “spindle”), already medieval.^[8][5] The learned Modern Greek άτρακτος (átraktos) means a spindle in Modern Greek, and also the fuselage of an aircraft, a sense taken from French fuselage, a word related to fuseau “spindle”.^[8]

Timeline

• 7th–6th century BC – A fragment of Sappho or Alcaeus has it for a spindle.^[7][4]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a spindle, Sophocles for an arrow, and Thucydides calls the arrow sense Laconian.^[6][7][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato describes the spindle of Necessity.^[6][4]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch uses it as a feminine noun.^[6][4]
• Medieval Greek – The diminutive gives the vernacular αδράχτι.^[8][5]
• Modern Greek – The learned άτρακτος also names an aircraft's fuselage.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spindle.^[6][7]
2. An arrow; said by Thucydides to be a Laconian use.^[6][7]
3. (medicine) A spindle-shaped cautery.^[6]
4. The upper part of a ship's mast.^[6]

Word family

• ἀτράκτιον (atráktion)
• ἀτρακτοειδής (atraktoeidḗs)
• ἀτρακτυλίς (atraktulís)
• ἀτρακτώδης (atraktṓdēs)

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 Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
5. ^ a b c d Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c d e Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki