ἐκεῖνος

Forms

ἐκεῖνος (ekeînos) ^[1] Epic, Ionic and lyric κεῖνος, used in tragedy only where the metre needs it.^[2] Aeolic κῆνος (kênos), Doric κῆνος (kênos) and τῆνος (tênos).^[2][3] Attic comedy strengthens it with the deictic -ί: ἐκεινοσί (ekeinosí).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *ékeyenos,^[1] an expressive word built from several demonstrative elements.^[3][4] The first part is the deictic ἐ- (e-) and the particle *ḱe, also in ἐκεῖ (ekeî, “there”) and in Latin cis (“on this side”) and Latin hic.^[1][5] The last part is Proto-Indo-European *h₁eno- (“that”), found in the frozen ἔνη (énē, “the day after tomorrow”), Old Church Slavonic онъ (onŭ, “that”) and Latin enim (“for”).^[3][4][1] Frisk suggests that ἐκεῖ took its sense of distance from ἐκεῖνος.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

From Homer on it points to the person or thing “over there”, away from the speaker, or to one just mentioned: in the Odyssey Iros is said to sit “there” at the courtyard gate.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In Classical prose ἐκεῖνος is the pronoun of distance, opposed to οὗτος (hoûtos): with two things mentioned before it properly refers to the more remote, “the former”, though sometimes it means “the latter”.^[2][6] It singles out famous people (“that great god”, “the famous Thucydides”), stands for a name one cannot or will not say, and in Plato ἐκεῖνα is the world of the Forms.^[2] With a noun, Attic and Aeolic use the article, and in reported speech it replaces the reflexive.^[2]

In the New Testament it marks someone or something distant in the discourse, opposed to οὗτος “this”, and “that day” is used especially of God's final judgement.^[7] Medieval vernacular Greek also used the shorter forms κείνος and εκειός.^[8] It lives on as Modern Greek εκείνος (ekeínos), with the colloquial κείνος after από and για, the demonstrative of distance opposed to αυτός.^[9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use κεῖνος for a person or thing over there or just mentioned.^[2][6][10]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod has both κεῖνος and ἐκεῖνος.^[10][11]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides and Attic prose use ἐκεῖνος, opposed to οὗτος.^[2][6][11]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato calls the world of the Forms ἐκεῖνα.^[2][11]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament opposes it to οὗτος and speaks of “that day”.^[7]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts also have κείνος (keínos) and εκειός (ekeiós).^[8]
• Modern Greek – εκείνος (ekeínos) remains the demonstrative of distance.^[9]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (demonstrative) That person or thing there, away from the speaker.^[2][6]
2. The one just mentioned; he, she, that; opposed to οὗτος (hoûtos), the more remote of two, “the former”.^[2][6]
3. The particular one, defined by a following relative clause.^[6][2]
4. That well-known or famous one.^[2][6]
5. So-and-so, of something one cannot or must not name.^[2]
6. (reported speech) Him, her, in place of the reflexive.^[2]

Word family

• ἐκεῖ (ekeî)
• ἐκεῖθεν (ekeîthen)
• ἐκεῖσε (ekeîse)
• ἐπέκεινα (epékeina)
• ἐκείνως (ekeínōs)

Related words

• ἔνη (énē)
• Latin enim

Usage notes

Τοῦτ’ ἐκεῖνο “this is that”, used by Sophocles and Euripides, means “here is the very thing (that was spoken of)”.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ 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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
9. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
11. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge