ἐλπίς

Forms

ἐλπῐ́ς (elpís) f (genitive ἐλπῐ́δος); third declension^[1] Homeric ϝελπίς, with the digamma shown by the metre.^[2][3] Attic hελπ- with a rough breathing on an inscription from Athens of the 5th century BC.^[4]

Etymology

It is a noun from Ancient Greek ἔλπομαι (élpomai, “to expect, hope”).^[5][6][7] The verb had an initial digamma, as Homeric metre shows, and an old perfect with present meaning, ἔολπα (éolpa).^[3][8] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *welp- (“to expect”), which has no verbal counterpart outside Greek.^[7][9] A verbal adjective of the same root has been seen in Latin volup (“pleasant”), whence voluptās (“pleasure”), from Indo-European *u(e/o)lp-i-, though Chantraine finds the comparison hard to work out in detail.^[7][3][9]

Chantraine and Frisk connect the root with Proto-Indo-European *wel-, seen in Latin volō (“to want”) and German wollen, and set the verb beside ἔλδομαι (éldomai, “to long for”), both built on *wel- with different suffixes.^[3][8][10] Ancient writers derived the noun from ἕλκω (hélkō, “to drag”), because hope drags time along, or from ἐλλείπω (elleípō, “to lack”), because those who hope lack something.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer has it twice in the Odyssey, in the phrase “there is still a share of hope”.^[5][2][4]

Semantic evolution

The word means expectation, of bad things as well as good, and hope.^[6][5] Hesiod personifies Hope.^[5][6] From the classical period it also names a person on whom one's hopes rest, a reason to expect something, and an anxious foreboding about the future.^[5][6]

In the Septuagint it is hope and the ground of one's hope, often the trust one places in someone.^[12] The New Testament uses it of confident expectation, above all the Christian hope.^[13][14] Coptic borrowed it, from about AD 200.^[15] The medieval form ελπίδα (elpída), from the accusative, is recorded from the 10th century, and it is the Modern Greek word for hope.^[16][17][10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey has it in “there is still a share of hope”.^[5][2]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Works and Days personifies Hope.^[5][18]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus calls Orestes the “hope of the house” and uses the word of foreboding.^[5][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato defines it as an opinion about what is to come.^[5][4]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it of the Christian hope.^[13][14]
• About AD 200 – Coptic has borrowed it.^[15]
• 10th century – The form ελπίδα (elpída) appears.^[16]
• Modern Greek – ελπίδα (elpída) is the word for hope.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. Expectation, of good or of bad; hope.^[5][6]
2. A person or thing on which one's hopes rest, “a hope”.^[5][6]
3. A reason to expect or believe something.^[5]
4. Anxious thought about the future, foreboding.^[5]
5. (personified) Ἐλπίς, Hope.^[5][6]
6. (New Testament) Confident expectation of what God has promised; the Christian hope.^[13]

Related words

• ἔλπομαι (élpomai)
• ἐλπίζω (elpízō)
• Latin voluptās

Usage notes

The set phrase παρ᾽ ἐλπίδα means “against all expectation”, and ἐπ᾽ ἐλπίδι “in hope”.^[4][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
3. ^ a b c d 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 Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b c 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
8. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
9. ^ a b Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
10. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
11. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
12. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
13. ^ a b c d 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
14. ^ a b Spicq, Ceslas (1994), Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, tr. James D. Ernest, 3 vols, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
15. ^ a b Database and Dictionary of Greek Loanwords in Coptic (DDGLC), Freie Universität Berlin and Universität Leipzig
16. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
17. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
18. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux