ἔλεγος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /é.le.ɡos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈe.le.ɣos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈe.le.ɣos/^[1]

Forms

ἔλεγος (élegos) m (genitive ἐλέγου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2] Beekes considers it probably Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek.^[3] Frisk and Hommel thought of an origin in Asia Minor, perhaps Phrygian, and the DGE calls it a borrowing from Phrygian, perhaps meaning “lament”.^[4][5] Frisk rejects the link with ἐλελεῦ (eleleû) and ὀλολύζω (ololúzō), and finds Old Armenian եղէգն (ełēgn, “reed”) too far apart in sense.^[4]

The ancients analysed it as “to say ‘e, e’” (to cry woe), from λέγω (légō); the Etymologicum Magnum explains it as a dirge spoken over the dead.^[2][6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is in the 6th-century BC poet Echembrotus, who paired songs and elegoi, a kind of song or piece of music, originally probably accompanied by the aulos.^[5][7][8]

Semantic evolution

In Euripides and Aristophanes it is a song of mourning, a lament, with no reference to metre; it is also the plaintive song of the nightingale and the halcyon.^[9][7] Plutarch records Elegoi as the title of a song for the aulos.^[7] From Callimachus on, the plural means poems in elegiac couplets.^[9][7]

The derivative ἐλεγεῖον (elegeîon) means the elegiac couplet and a poem or inscription in that metre, and gave Latin ēlogium, reshaped after λόγος (lógos).^[3][2][4] The family also passed into the learned European vocabulary, as French élégie.^[2] Aristotle's fish name ἐλεγῖνος was probably named after its sound.^[3][4]

Timeline

• 6th century BC – Echembrotus speaks of songs and elegoi.^[5][8]
• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of laments and of the halcyon's song.^[9][7][5]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it of the nightingale's song.^[7][5]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses the plural for elegiac poems.^[9][7][5]
• 3rd century BC – Apollonius of Rhodes uses it of a lament.^[7][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A song or tune, originally sung to the aulos.^[7][5]
2. A song of mourning, lament; also the plaintive song of certain birds.^[9][7]
3. (plural) Poems in elegiac couplets, elegiacs.^[9][7]

Word family

• ἐλεγεῖον (elegeîon)
• ἐλεγεία (elegeíā)
• ἐλεγειακός (elegeiakós)

Related words

• Latin ēlogium
• French élégie

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
6. ^ Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press