ἑός

Forms

ἑός (heós) (feminine ἑή, neuter ἑόν)^[1] Epic genitive ἑοῖο, Boeotian ἱός, and Doric and other dialects ϝός.^[2][3][4] The possessive ὅς is its shorter counterpart.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *hewós, from an adjective made from the reflexive Proto-Indo-European *swé (“self”).^[1][4] Beekes and Frisk explain this word and the possessive ὅς (hós) as adjectives made from the reflexive pronoun ἕ (hé, “him, her”): Proto-Indo-European *seu̯o- gave the epic form, and *su̯o- the dialect form ϝός (wós).^[4][5]

Cognate with Sanskrit स्व (svá-, “own”), Old Latin sovos (later suus) and Lithuanian sãvas.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it means “his” or “her”, often with the stress of “his own”, as in τὸν ἑόν τε Πόδαργον “and his own Podargus” (Iliad 23.295).^[2][6] It can be strengthened with αὐτός (autós): ἑῷ αὐτοῦ θυμῷ “in his own heart”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In a few Homeric passages it seems to refer to the first person, “my”.^[6] After Homer it spread to other persons: Hesiod and Pindar use it for “their”, and Hellenistic poets such as Apollonius of Rhodes for “my”, “your” and “our”.^[2][3]

It was a word of epic and lyric poetry and of some dialects, Doric, Boeotian and Thessalian; it is not found in Attic prose and only doubtfully in tragedy.^[2][3]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for “his own”, “her own”.^[6][2]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it for “their”.^[2][3]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it for “his” and “their”.^[2][3]
• 5th century BC – Corinna writes the Boeotian form ἱός.^[2][3]
• 3rd century BC – Apollonius of Rhodes uses it for the first and second persons.^[3][2]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. (third person singular) His, her, its; his own, her own.^[2][3][6]
2. (third person plural, after Homer) Their.^[2][3]
3. (first person, Homer and Hellenistic poetry) My; our.^[3][6]
4. (second person, Iliad and Hellenistic poetry) Your.^[3]

Related words

• ὅς (hós)
• ἕ (hé)
• σφός (sphós)
• Latin suus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d e Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son