ἑβδομήκοντα

Forms

ἑβδομήκοντᾰ (hebdomḗkonta) (ordinal ἑβδομηκοστός, adverbial ἑβδομηκοντᾰ́κῐς)^[1] Doric (Delphi, the Heraclean Tables) and Thessalian forms begin ἑβδεμ-, and Boeotian forms in ἑβδομει- are found on inscriptions of the 3rd century BC.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *hebdmākontə,^[1] from an older *ἑβδμήκοντα (*hebdmḗkonta), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *septm-dḱmt- (“seventy”).^[4][1] Frisk explains the ⟨βδ⟩ by assimilation: the numeral *septm̥ (Greek ἑπτά (heptá)) became *sebdm- before the voiced stop of the word for “ten”.^[2] Beekes follows Kortlandt in deriving the long vowel of -μη- from the syllabic /m/ followed by a preglottalized /d/, which gave the same result as *-m̥h₁-.^[4] The same development is seen in ἕβδομος (hébdomos) “seventh” and in ἑβδομάς (hebdomás) “a group of seven”.^[4][2]

Cognate with Sanskrit सप्तति (saptati), Latin septuāgintā and Old Armenian եօթանասուն (eōtʻanasun).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus uses it for the number seventy, reckoning a long human life at seventy years.^[5][3][4]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed an indeclinable numeral throughout antiquity, used in prose from Herodotus and Xenophon on and in the Septuagint and the New Testament.^[5][6][7][8] In Hellenistic Greek the plural phrase “the Seventy” came to mean the translators of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and by metonymy their translation.^[9][10]

In medieval vernacular Greek it lost a syllable and became εβδομήντα (evdomínta), on the model of εξήντα (exínta) and πενήντα (penínta), which is the ordinary Modern Greek word.^[11][9] The ancient form lives on in Modern Greek only as a learned word, chiefly in the name Modern Greek Εβδομήκοντα (Evdomíkonta) for the Septuagint translators.^[9]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for the number seventy.^[5][3]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it in the Anabasis.^[5]
• 4th century BC – Doric inscriptions at Delphi and Heraclea write it ἑβδεμ-.^[3][2]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it in Luke and Acts.^[8]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts have the shortened ’βδομήντα (’vdomínta) and εβδομήντα (evdomínta).^[11]
• Modern Greek – The learned εβδομήκοντα (evdomíkonta) names the translators of the Septuagint.^[9]

Meanings

Numeral

1. Seventy.^[5][6]
2. (Hellenistic, as a noun, in the plural with the article) The Seventy, the translators of the Septuagint; their translation.^[9][10]

Word family

• ἑβδομηκοστός (hebdomēkostós)
• ἑβδομηκοντάκις (hebdomēkontákis)

Related words

• ἑπτά (heptá)
• ἕβδομος (hébdomos)
• Latin septuāgintā

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
3. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c d e Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
10. ^ a b Βικιλεξικό, the Greek Wiktionary, https://el.wiktionary.org
11. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr