ἔρρω

Forms

ἔρρω (érrhō) ^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][1] It is an expressive word of poetry and familiar speech, unknown to prose, and all its dialect forms have the double ⟨ρρ⟩, among them Locrian ϝερρέτω (werrétō) and Elean ϝάρρεν (wárren) with the initial digamma.^[2][3]

Pokorny traced it to Proto-Indo-European *wers- (“to drag on the ground”), the root of Latin verrō (“to sweep”) and Hittite warš- (“to wipe, to reap”),^[4] but the geminate, which that root would not give outside Attic, and the difference in meaning tell against this.^[2][1] In Beekes's view it is more probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn”), following Forssman, who reconstructs a present *u̯ert-ie/o- with a new account of how its consonant cluster developed.^[2][1][5] The LIV lists it, with a question mark, under the same root as a thematic present *wért-e-.^[6][1] The database edition of Beekes calls it unexplained and asks whether it was an old interjection.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it means to go with difficulty or to one's harm: it is used of the limping Hephaestus and of Menelaus wandering alone, and of an ill-omened journey.^{[7][8][9][10]} The imperative, “be off!”, is already frequent in the Iliad.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

Most later uses are imperatives and imprecations.^[3][11] Archilochus writes ἀσπὶς ἐκείνη ἐρρέτω, “let that shield go”;^[8] in Sophocles a character cries “perish Troy!”;^[8] and Aristophanes has the coarse “go to the crows!” and threatening questions such as “won't you get out?”.^[11][8][3] The few forms outside the present, the future in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the aorist and perfect in Aristophanes, are all made from the present stem.^[3][2]

In tragedy, Plato and Xenophon it also means to be gone or lost;^[11] Xenophon quotes a Laconian dispatch saying that “the ships are lost”.^[3][11][12] In Locrian law the imperative was the formula for sending an offender into exile.^[3][8] Hesychius preserves the only nouns from the stem: ἐρρετός (erretós) “ruin” and βέρρης (bérrhēs) “runaway”.^[3]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it of the limping Hephaestus and, in the imperative, as “be off!”.^[7][8]
• 7th century BC – Archilochus says “let that shield go”.^[8]
• 6th century BC – Theognis uses the imperative as a curse.^[8][13]
• 5th century BC – A Locrian legal formula uses the imperative to banish an offender.^[8][3]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles has “perish Troy!”.^[8]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it in the coarse dismissal “go to the crows!” and forms an aorist.^[11][8][3]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon quotes a Laconian dispatch: “the ships are lost”.^[3][12]
• 3rd century BC – Apollonius of Rhodes uses the plural imperative.^[8][11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go slowly or with difficulty; to limp; to wander forlornly.^[8][7][11]
2. To go or come to one's own harm, to make an ill-fated journey.^[8][7][11]
3. (imperative) Be off! begone! (third person) away with him, let him perish; with “to the crows”, a coarse dismissal.^[8][11]
4. To be gone, be lost, perish.^[8][11][3]
5. (Locrian, law) To go into exile.^[3][8]

Word family

• ἀπέρρω (apérrō)
• εἰσέρρω (eisérrō)
• ἐξέρρω (exérrō)
• περιέρρω (periérrō)
• ἀνέρρω (anérrō)

Usage notes

LSJ lists a second ἔρρω, an Aeolic form of ἔρω, known only from the Etymologicum Magnum;^[8] Chæréphon gives it as Aeolic for εἴρω (eírō).^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 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
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
6. ^ Rix, Helmut, et al. (2001), Lexikon der indogermanischen Verben, 2nd ed., Wiesbaden: Reichert
7. ^ a b c d e Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Autenrieth, Georg (1891), A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, tr. Robert P. Keep, New York: Harper and Brothers
10. ^ Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
12. ^ a b Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1889), An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
14. ^ Charbonnet, André (2025), Chæréphon, v4.7: supplement to Bailly from papyri, inscriptions and recent lexica