ἡμέρα
Pronunciation
- IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /hɛː.mé.raː/[1]
- IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /iˈme.ra/[1]
- IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /iˈme.ra/[1]
Forms
ἡμέρᾱ (hēmérā) f (genitive ἡμέρᾱς); first declension[1]
Etymology
It is an extension of ἦμαρ (êmar, “day”), the older and in Homer the more frequent word.[2][1][3] The rough breathing of Attic and western Ionic was probably taken from ἑσπέρα (hespérā, “evening”); early Attic inscriptions and most dialects have the plain ⟨ἀμέρα⟩.[2][3][1]
Ἦμαρ is from Proto-Indo-European *Heh₂mer (“day”), and its only cognate is Old Armenian աւր (awr, “day”).[2][1] Mycenaean has it in Mycenaean Greek a-mo-ra-ma (“day after day”).[2]
Earliest recorded meaning
In the Iliad “this day brings evil”, and the Odyssey pairs “nights and days”.[3]
Semantic evolution
It was the day as opposed to the night, and the full day of twenty-four hours; adverbial phrases such as ἅμα ἡμέρᾳ “at daybreak” are common in prose.[4][3] In tragedy it is also a period of one's life, “a day of misery”, “old age”, and the day of one's death.[3][4] Ammonius distinguishes it from ἠώς (ēṓs): Hesiod makes Day a bodiless child of Night, Dawn a goddess.[5]
The Septuagint uses it for feast days, lifetimes and set times, and the New Testament for the day of judgement, “the day of the Lord”.[6][7][4] Days of the week were named after the planets, as ἡμέρα Σελήνης “Monday”.[1]
In medieval Greek the first vowel was lost by running together with the article, giving μέρα (méra), the everyday Modern Greek word beside the learned ημέρα (iméra).[8]
Timeline
- Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it beside the older ἦμαρ.[3][2]
- Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony makes Day a daughter of Night.[5]
- 5th century BC – Herodotus has ἅμ᾽ ἡμέρῃ “at daybreak”.[3]
- 5th century BC – Sophocles and Euripides use it for a period of life.[3][4]
- 1st century AD – The New Testament speaks of the day of judgement.[7][4]
Meanings
Noun
- day, as opposed to night.[3][4]
- A day of twenty-four hours.[4][7]
- A particular day, a set date; the day of one's death.[4]
- (poetic) A time or period of life.[3][4]
- (plural) One's days, lifetime.[4][6]
- (New Testament) The day of judgement.[4][7]
- A birthday.[9][1]
Word family
- διημερεύω (diēmereúō)
- εὐημερέω (euēmeréō)
- εὐημέρημα (euēmérēma)
- εὐημερία (euēmería)
- εὐήμερος (euḗmeros)
- ἐφημέριος (ephēmérios)
- ἐφήμερος (ephḗmeros)
- ἡμερήσιος (hēmerḗsios)
- ἡμερινός (hēmerinós)
- ἡμεροδρόμος (hēmerodrómos)
- ἡμεροφύλαξ (hēmerophúlax)
- ἰσημερία (isēmería)
- ἰσημερινός (isēmerinós)
- καθημέριος (kathēmérios)
Related words
- ἦμαρ (êmar)
- σήμερον (sḗmeron)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ 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
- ^ a b [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
- ^ a b Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
- ^ a b c d 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
- ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)