ἐπίθετος

Forms

ἐπίθετος (epíthetos) m or f (neuter ἐπίθετον); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a verbal adjective from Ancient Greek ἐπιτίθημι (epitíthēmi, “to put on, add”), “put on, added”.^[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Antiphon the Sophist contrasts the rules of the laws, which are added on, with the necessities of nature.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Athenian usage it marked what was added or recent as opposed to what was ancestral: Isocrates speaks of new festivals, and Lysias and Aristotle of the powers the Areopagus had acquired beyond its original ones.^[3][4] Plutarch uses it for usurped authority, and Theophrastus and Dionysius of Halicarnassus extend it to the fictitious.^[3][4]

As a grammatical term the neuter ἐπίθετον (epítheton) meant an epithet, already in Aristotle's Rhetoric, on the idea that such words are placed on the nouns they describe; the grammarians then used it for the adjective.^[3][2] Through Latin and French it is the source of the English word.^[5] The modern επίθετο (epítheto) is a learned continuation, meaning an adjective, an epithet and, on the model of French, a surname.^[6]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Antiphon the Sophist uses it for what the laws add to nature.^[3][7]
• 5th–4th century BC – Isocrates uses it of recent festivals, and Lysias of the acquired powers of the Areopagus.^[3][4]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses the neuter for an epithet.^[3][2]
• 2nd–1st century BC – Dionysius Thrax uses it for an adjectival noun.^[3]
• 1570s – English borrows epithet from French or Latin.^[5]
• Modern Greek – επίθετο (epítheto) is the grammatical term for the adjective.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Additional, added on; at Athens, recent as opposed to ancestral.^[3][4]
2. Acquired, assumed; of authority, usurped.^[3][4]
3. Adventitious, incidental, opposed to what is natural or universal.^[3][4]
4. Fictitious.^[3]
5. Of letters, entrusted to someone to deliver.^[3]
6. (grammar) Adjectival; as a neuter noun, an epithet, an adjective.^[3][4]
7. (masculine noun) A throw of the dice.^[3]

Word family

• ἐπίθετον (epítheton)

Related words

• ἐπιτίθημι (epitíthēmi)
• English epithet

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
7. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge