ἔποψ

Forms

ἔποψ (épops) m (genitive ἔποπος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is an imitation of the bird's call, the cry that Aristophanes writes ἐποποῖ (epopoî) and πόποπο (pópopo), given the form of bird names such as δρύοψ (drúops).^[2][3][4] Chantraine adds that the ending -οψ (-ops) of bird names such as ἀέροψ (aérops) and μέροψ (mérops) has sometimes been thought Thracian.^[4] Other languages have parallel names for the hoopoe, such as Old Armenian պոպոպ (popop), Latin upupa and Latvian pupukis, and Beekes thinks that the word probably cannot be called Indo-European.^[2][3][4] Hesychius records the variants ἔποπος (épopos) and ἄπαφος (ápaphos).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Epicharmus and Aeschylus are the first to use it, for the hoopoe, Upupa epops.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

In Aeschylus the hoopoe is called a witness of its own woes, and Aeschylus and later writers have it change into a hawk.^[5][7] Its crest was read as a crown, so that it seemed a king transformed, as in the myth of Tereus.^[7] People said it used a magic plant to open locks and foretold a good wine year when it called often, and in Egypt it was honoured for its supposed care of its old parents.^[7] Aristotle describes the bird, and Hesychius also glosses ἔποψ as “overseer, ruler”, by a play on ἐπόπτης (epóptēs).^[5][8]

The Septuagint has it among the unclean birds of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.^[9] It was borrowed as Latin epops, beside the native upupa.^[10][2] The Modern Greek name of the bird is Modern Greek τσαλαπετεινός (tsalapetinós).^[11]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus calls the hoopoe a witness of its own woes.^[5][7]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes' Birds imitates the hoopoe's call.^[2][4]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle describes the bird.^[5]
• 2nd century AD – Antoninus Liberalis tells of a transformation into a hoopoe.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The hoopoe, Upupa epops.^[5][12]

Related words

• Latin epops
• Latin upupa

References

1. ^ a b c d 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
7. ^ a b c d Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
9. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ Βικιλεξικό, the Greek Wiktionary, https://el.wiktionary.org
12. ^ Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press