ἆθλον

Forms

ἆθλον (âthlon) n (genitive ἄθλου); second declension^[1] Epic and Ionic ἄεθλον (áethlon), the form Homer and Herodotus use.^[2][3] Attic contracts it to ἆθλον.^[2][3] Arcadian ἄϝεθλα (áwethla) (plural), with the old /w/ still written.^[4][3]

Etymology

The Attic word is contracted from epic and Ionic ἄεθλον (áethlon), earlier ἄϝεθλα (áwethla) in Arcadian, and is the neuter beside the masculine ἆθλος (âthlos) “contest”.^[4][3][1] The neuter properly names the prize of a contest, the masculine the contest itself.^[3][5]

The origin is not settled.^[3][6] Beekes thinks the word looks Indo-European and that its form points to a root with no known cognates outside Greek; in his view it may be inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wedʰ- (“contest”).^[4][1] An older derivation takes it from Proto-Indo-European *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”) with the suffix *-dʰlom, as if the first sense had been “panting, toil”.^[1] Trümpy, starting from a sense “labour”, compared Sanskrit वायति (vāyati, “is tired”), but Beekes rejects this because the Sanskrit verb comes from a different root, Proto-Indo-European *h₁weh₂-.^[4][1] Chantraine notes that the Homeric evidence suggests the first sense was “trial, contest for a prize”, and that on that view the word has no etymology.^[3] Frisk calls it unexplained.^[6]

Ancient grammarians guessed at it too: the Etymologicum Genuinum derived it from ἐθέλω (ethélō, “to be willing”), as the thing one desires, and another ancient derivation linked it with τλάω (tláō, “to endure”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on in the epic form ἄεθλον, meaning the prize of an athletic contest, as in the twenty-third book of the Iliad.^[2][8][9] In the Odyssey the plural also names the contests themselves and the bow and arrows of Odysseus, perhaps as the equipment for a contest.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In Homer the word is concrete: the prize offered at games.^[3][10] The plural could also mean the contests or games, in the Odyssey and in Pindar, and in Sophocles the struggles or labours of a hero.^[2][10] The sense “prize” became the usual one in Attic prose, with set phrases for offering prizes and for winning them, and it was used figuratively of any reward: Thucydides speaks of the prizes of virtue, and Lysias of the wages of wrongdoing, meaning their punishment.^[3][2][8] Plato uses the plural for the place where a contest is held.^[2][8] Lucian criticised the use of the neuter plural for “contests”, which the lexicographer Ammonius also kept apart from the masculine ἆθλος (âthlos).^[2][5]

The word stayed in literary Greek; in Modern Greek the masculine survives as the learned άθλος (áthlos, “feat”), and a prize is an Modern Greek έπαθλο (épathlo), from ancient ἔπαθλον (épathlon).^[11][12] From the same group come ἀθλέω (āthléō, “to contend”) and ἀθλητής (athlētḗs), the source of the English word athlete.^[4][6]

Timeline

• 700s BC – The Iliad uses ἄεθλον for the prizes of athletic games.^[2][8][9]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses the plural for the games of Amphidamas.^[8][9]
• 6th century BC – Inscriptions from Tegea and Sybaris still write the stem with a digamma.^[8]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides speaks of the prizes of virtue, and Sophocles uses the plural for a hero's struggles.^[2][8]
• 4th century BC – Plato uses the plural for the place of a contest, and Demosthenes speaks of the prizes of war.^[2][8]
• 2nd century AD – Lucian criticises the use of the plural for contests.^[2]
• 9th century AD – The Etymologicum Genuinum derives the word from ἐθέλω “to be willing”.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The prize of a contest, athletic or musical.^[2][10][8]
2. (figurative) A reward, of virtue or of wrongdoing (that is, a penalty).^[2][10][8]
3. (plural) Contests, games held as an event.^[2][10][8]
4. (plural, figurative) Struggles, ordeals, labours.^[2][10]
5. (plural) The equipment for a contest, of the bow and arrows of Odysseus.^[8]
6. (plural) A place of combat.^[2][8]
7. (astrology) The same as κλῆρος (klêros), a lot.^[2]

Word family

• πένταθλον (péntāthlon)
• ἀθλέω (āthléō)
• ἆθλος (âthlos)
• ἀθλητής (athlētḗs)
• ἔπαθλον (épathlon)

Related words

• English athlete

Usage notes

Ammonius distinguishes the masculine ἆθλος (âthlos) “contest” from the neuter ἆθλον “prize”, quoting the Odyssey for the first and the Iliad for the second.^[5] Hesychius glosses ἆθλον with words for a contest, a deed and a prize.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 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
5. ^ a b c [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
6. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
9. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
10. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
13. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)