ἑσπέρα

Forms

ἑσπέρᾱ (hespérā) f (genitive ἑσπέρᾱς); first declension^[1] Ionic ἑσπέρη.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek ἕσπερος (hésperos, “of evening, western”), the feminine of the adjective used as a noun, with ὥρα (hṓrā, “hour”) understood.^[1][3][4] Beekes thinks the feminine was formed after ἡμέρα (hēmérā, “day”).^[2]

The adjective continues Proto-Hellenic *wésperos, from Proto-Indo-European *wek(ʷ)speros (“evening”).^[1][2] Cognate with Latin vesper, Old Armenian գիշեր (gišer) and Old Church Slavonic вєчєръ (večerŭ), all meaning “evening”.^[1][2] Beekes explains the Armenian form as pointing to a cluster */kʷsp/, and identifies the second part with the word for “night” found in Sanskrit and in Hittite išpant- (“night”); the original sense may have been “towards the night”.^[2]

Ancient grammarians derived it from ἕως (héōs, “dawn”) and πέρας (péras, “end”), as the time when the day ends, or from ἔσω (ésō, “inside”), as the time that brings people indoors.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Pindar, in the genitive meaning “at evening”, and in the Ionic form in Heraclitus.^[3][6][7]

Semantic evolution

In Classical prose it is the ordinary word for evening, with set phrases for “in the evening”, “towards evening” and “at nightfall”.^[8][3] Pindar speaks of the evenings of the full moon, the comic poet Alexis of life “drawing to its evening”, and Aristotle's Poetics quotes “the evening of life” as a metaphor.^[3][8]

With χώρα (khṓrā, “land”) understood it meant the west, from Herodotus on, and Polybius speaks of the clouds rising in the west in a political sense, and Agathias uses it for the Western Empire.^[3][8] The same polysemy of “evening” and “west” is recorded for other languages.^[9]

The Septuagint uses it for the evening of the days of creation in Genesis, and the New Testament for the evening hour, as in “from morning till evening”.^[10][11] Josephus uses it for a night spent in camp.^[3]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept it, with a short form ’σπέρα and a genitive used as an adverb, “in the evening”, which survives in dialects and in Cypriot.^[12] Modern Greek has the learned εσπέρα (espéra), and Tsakonian επφέρζι (epférzi) continues the ancient word.^[13][1]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses the genitive for “at evening”.^[3][6][14]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses the Ionic form for the west.^[3][14]
• 4th century BC – Plato and Xenophon use the phrase “towards evening”.^[3][8][14]
• 2nd century BC – Polybius speaks metaphorically of clouds from the west.^[3][14]
• 1st century AD – Josephus uses it for a night.^[3][14]
• 5th century AD – Orion derives it from the words for dawn and end.^[5]
• 6th century AD – Agathias uses it for the Western Empire.^[3][14]
• 1100–1669 – Vernacular texts use it and its short form for the evening.^[12]
• Modern Greek – The learned εσπέρα (espéra) is used in formal style.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The evening; in the genitive, “in the evening”.^[3][8]
2. (figurative) The evening of life, old age.^[3][8]
3. A night.^[3]
4. The west.^[3][8]
5. (Byzantine) The Western Empire.^[3]

Related words

• ἕσπερος (hésperos)
• ἑσπέριος (hespérios)
• Latin vesper

Usage notes

The grammarian Ammonius distinguishes it from ὀψέ (opsé): this word is the time of sunset, ὀψέ any time long after it.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
5. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
6. ^ a b Slater, William J. (1969), Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: De Gruyter
7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Zalizniak, Anna A., et al. (2024), Database of Semantic Shifts (DatSemShift), Moscow: Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, https://datsemshift.ru
10. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
15. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)