ἔρχομαι

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /ér.kʰo.mai̯/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈer.xo.mɛ/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈer.xo.me/^[1]

Forms

ἔρχομαι (érkhomai) ^[1] Dialect aorists: Doric ἦνθον (ênthon), Laconian participle ἐλσών (elsṓn); epic and poetic ἤλυθον (ḗluthon).^[2] Perfect ἐλήλυθα (elḗlutha), epic εἰλήλουθα (eilḗloutha); future ἐλεύσομαι (eleúsomai).^[2][3]

Etymology

The verb is suppletive: ἔρχομαι itself has only a present stem.^[4][5] In Attic the imperfect and usually the future come from εἶμι (eîmi), while the aorist ἦλθον (êlthon), the perfect ἐλήλυθα (elḗlutha) and the future ἐλεύσομαι (eleúsomai) are built on a stem ἐλυθ- (eluth-), ἐλευθ- (eleuth-).^[2][3][5]

The origin of the present is disputed.^[1][5] Beekes thinks it quite possible that it is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₁r̥sḱéti, a present in *-sḱe- of *h₁er- (“to move, go”), and compares Sanskrit ऋच्छति (ṛccháti, “to reach, arrive at”) and the iterative Hittite aršk- "to reach repeatedly, make incursions", following Rix.^[4][1] Others start from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ergʰ- (“to move, go”), comparing Old Irish eirg (“go!”) and regaid (“he will go”), Sanskrit ऋघायति (ṛghāyáti) and, within Greek, the iterative ὀρχέομαι (orkhéomai, “to dance”).^[4][1] Wiktionary adds Albanian erdha (“I came”) to this set.^[1] An older proposal by Meillet, reported by Chantraine, posits a suffix of completed motion on the root of ἕρπω (hérpō, “to creep”), with Old Armenian երթամ (ertʿam, “to go”) as a neighbouring formation, but Chantraine finds the evidence for that sense of the suffix weak.^[5] The verb is not related to ὄρνυμι (órnumi), which needs a different initial laryngeal.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, meaning “to come” or “to go”, and also “to set out” and “to walk” (of men on the earth, as opposed to gods).^[4][2][3][6]

Semantic evolution

In Homer and lyric poetry the verb often means “to go”, later more often “to come”.^[3] With a cognate accusative it means to go on a journey.^[2] From Herodotus on, with a prepositional phrase, to come into a state or activity, as in “to come to blows” or “to come so far”.^[3][2] Herodotus, Plato and Xenophon also use it with a future participle as a periphrastic future, “to be going to do”.^[2] The imperfect ἠρχόμην (ērkhómēn), rare in Attic, which used the imperfect of εἶμι (eîmi) instead, becomes frequent in later prose, the Septuagint and the New Testament.^[3][5] In the New Testament the participle ὁ ἐρχόμενος, “the coming one”, names the expected Messiah, and the verb is used of the second coming.^[7][8]

Its prefixed forms (ἀπέρχομαι (apérkhomai), εἰσέρχομαι (eisérkhomai), ἐξέρχομαι (exérkhomai) and others) are very common from Homer to late Greek.^[4][5] Medieval vernacular Greek kept the verb, with forms that survive in the dialects.^[9] It lives on as Modern Greek έρχομαι (érchomai), which in some learned phrases copies the use of French venir, English come and German kommen.^[10][5]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for coming, going and setting out.^[2][6]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of coming into a state or activity, and with a future participle as a periphrastic future.^[2][11]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides has a prefixed imperfect, one of the rare Attic examples of the tense.^[3][5]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament calls the Messiah “the coming one” and uses the imperfect freely.^[7][8][3]
• 1100–1669 – Medieval vernacular Greek keeps the verb, with dialect forms.^[9]
• Modern Greek – The verb survives as Modern Greek έρχομαι (érchomai).^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make one's way; to come or go somewhere; with a cognate accusative, to go on a journey or mission.^[2][3]
2. To set out, depart; of a ship, to start on a voyage.^[2][3]
3. To come back, return.^[2]
4. Of humans, as opposed to gods: to walk about on the earth.^[2][3]
5. Of things, times, sounds and feelings: to come or go, arrive or pass.^[2]
6. With a prepositional phrase: to come into a condition or activity, such as a fight or a discussion.^[2][3]
7. With a future participle: to be about to do something.^[2]

Word family

• ἀνέρχομαι (anérkhomai)
• ἀπέρχομαι (apérkhomai)
• διεξέρχομαι (diexérkhomai)
• διέρχομαι (diérkhomai)
• εἰσέρχομαι (eisérkhomai)
• ἔλευσις (éleusis)
• ἐξέρχομαι (exérkhomai)
• ἐπανέρχομαι (epanérkhomai)

Related words

• εἶμι (eîmi)
• ὀρχέομαι (orkhéomai)

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 g h i j k l m n o p Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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
6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b Thayer, Joseph Henry (1889), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, New York: American Book Company
8. ^ a b 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
9. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge