ἐλαία

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /e.lǎi̯.aː/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /eˈlɛ.a/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /eˈle.a/^[1]

Forms

ἐλαίᾱ (elaíā) f (genitive ἐλαίᾱς); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *elaíwā, a word that is no doubt Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek, as its suffix -αι(ϝ)- suggests.^[1][2][3][4] Scarborough's database rates this very reliable.^[5] Mycenaean has Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wa /elaiwa/ and e-ra-wo /elaiwon/.^[2]

The Latin borrowing olīva proves an older form *ἐλαίϝα (*elaíwā), and Cypriot ἔλαιϝον (élaiwon) corresponds to Latin oleum; all other European words for the olive come from Latin.^[2] Old Armenian եւղ (ewł, “oil”) may come from the same source.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Mycenaean tablets have Mycenaean Greek e-ra-wa.^[2][4] Homer uses it for the olive tree, especially in the Odyssey, which has a sacred olive (13.372); the Iliad has a man tending an olive sapling (17.53).^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

Herodotus distinguishes the cultivated olive from the wild one, κότινος (kótinos).^[6] At Athens the olives stood at the end of the racecourse, and “to run beyond the olives” (Aristophanes) meant to go too far.^[6] From Aristophanes and Plato on it was also the fruit, the olive.^[7][6] Theophrastus applies it to an Indian tree and to a kind of laurel.^[6]

Its neuter ἔλαιον (élaion) is olive oil.^[2] Latin borrowed it as olea and olīva.^[8][2] Modern Greek has the learned ελαία and the everyday ελιά.^[1][9]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – Linear B has e-ra-wa.^[2]
• Homer – The Odyssey and the Iliad use it for the olive tree.^[6][10]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus contrasts the cultivated and the wild olive.^[6][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the fruit.^[7][4]
• Modern Greek – ελιά means olive.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. The olive tree.^[6][7]
2. The olive, the fruit.^[6][7]
3. A tree like the olive; a kind of laurel.^[6]

Word family

• ἐλάϊνος (elā́ïnos)
• θυμελαία (thumelaíā)
• χαμελαία (khamelaíā)

Related words

• ἔλαιον (élaion)
• Latin olīva
• English olive

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 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. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
5. ^ Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
9. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux