ἐλέφας

Forms

ἐλέφᾱς (eléphās) m or f (genitive ἐλέφαντος); third declension^[1] Mycenaean Greek e-re-pa “ivory”.^[2][3] Aeolic ἐλέφαις (Sappho).^[4][5]

Etymology

Like Latin ebur (“ivory”), ἐλέφας is a foreign word.^[6][7] Beekes classes it as a loanword from Egyptian: apart from the suffix ⟨-ντ-⟩, its end recalls borrowed from Egyptian ꜣbw (“elephant; ivory”), but he finds the details unclear.^[6] Frisk compares the same Egyptian word and Sanskrit इभ (íbha, “elephant”).^[7] Rosół notes that Egyptian ⟨ꜣ⟩ is now generally taken to have stood for a liquid consonant in Middle Egyptian, and cites Breyer, who treats ἐλέφας as an Egyptian loan; he also lists Hittite laḫpa- (“ivory”) (a meaning the Chicago Hittite Dictionary queries) among the words to compare.^[3] The DGE relates it to the Hittite word and suggests it may be a Semitic loan.^[2]

A derivation from the Semitic word for “ox”, Akkadian alpu (“cattle, ox”), has been proposed since the 17th century and still has followers, among them Laroche and Astour, and West reconstructed a phrase meaning “ox of Hanû”;^[3] Rosół lists it among the Semitic etymologies he rejects.^[3] Frisk also rejects Kretschmer's derivation from ἐλεφαίρομαι (elephaíromai, “to cheat, damage”), as “destroyer”, first of the mammoth.^[7]

Ancient writers explained the name in several ways: the Etymologicum Gudianum derives it from ἕλος (hélos, “marsh”) and βαίνω (baínō), because the animal was thought to mate in marshes, or from λευκός (leukós, “white”), for its white bone,^[8] or from ἑλίσσω (helíssō, “to roll up”), for its rolled trunk;^[8] Aristophanes of Byzantium connected it with ἕλειος (héleios, “of the marshes”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Mycenaean tablets have the word as e-re-pa, meaning “ivory”.^[3][7] In Homer it only means ivory, or a piece of ivory (Iliad 4.141), never the animal; the Odyssey uses it as an image of whiteness (18.196, 23.200).^[4][9][10]

Semantic evolution

Ivory remains the main sense in Hesiod, Pindar and Plato.^[4][5] Herodotus is the first to name the animal itself, as a native of Africa, and speaks of “elephants' teeth”;^[4] Aristotle is the first to mention the Indian elephant.^[4][2] Later the word also named the disease elephantiasis (Aretaeus, Galen), a precious stone (Theophrastus) and a kind of cup (Damoxenus).^[4] In the Septuagint it means ivory in Ezekiel and elephants in 1 Maccabees.^[11]

It was borrowed into Latin elephās and elephantus,^[12][6] the source of the Germanic and Romance forms.^[6] Coptic borrowed it too, in Sahidic manuscripts from about AD 1000.^[13] Medieval vernacular Greek has ελέφαντας and shortened forms such as ’λέφας;^[14] It survives as Modern Greek ελέφας (eléfas), and more commonly ελέφαντας (eléfantas).^[8][14]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – The Linear B tablets have e-re-pa, “ivory”.^[3][2]
• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it only of ivory.^[4][9]
• 7th–6th century BC – Sappho has the Aeolic form ἐλέφαις.^[4][2]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus first mentions the elephant, as an animal of Africa.^[4][2]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle first mentions the Indian elephant.^[4][2]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it of a precious stone.^[4][2]
• 3rd century BC – The comic poet Damoxenus uses it of a kind of cup.^[4][2]
• 2nd century AD – Aretaeus uses it for the disease elephantiasis.^[4][2]
• About AD 1000 – It appears as a loanword in Sahidic Coptic.^[13]
• Modern Greek – It survives as ελέφας and ελέφαντας.^[8][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. Ivory; a piece of ivory.^[4][5][9]
2. The elephant.^[4][5]
3. (medicine) Elephantiasis, the same as ἐλεφαντίασις (elephantíāsis).^[4][6]
4. A precious stone.^[4]
5. A kind of drinking cup.^[4]

Word family

• ἐλεφαντάρχης (elephantárkhēs)
• ἐλεφαντομαχία (elephantomakhíā)
• ἐλεφάντινος (elephántinos)
• ἐλεφαντίασις (elephantíāsis)

Related words

• Latin elephantus
• English elephant

Usage notes

In the Odyssey (19.564–565), dreams that come through the gate of sawn ivory are said to deceive, a play on ἐλέφας and ἐλεφαίρονται (“they deceive”), which may have inspired the ancient derivation from that verb.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
3. ^ a b c d e f Rosół, Rafał (2013), Frühe semitische Lehnwörter im Griechischen, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b c d e f Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
9. ^ a b c Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ Autenrieth, Georg (1891), A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, tr. Robert P. Keep, New York: Harper and Brothers
11. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
12. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
13. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
14. ^ a b c Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr