ἦρι

Forms

ἦρῐ (êri) ^[1]

Etymology

In Beekes's view, following Kiparsky, it is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eus-er-i (“in the early morning”), a locative from the root *h₂ews- (“dawn”) of ἠώς (ēṓs, “dawn”).^[2][3] Wiktionary gives it as a locative of the noun continued by ἀήρ (āḗr, “mist, air”).^[1] It seems to stand for a form *ἤερι (*ḗeri), as in ἠέριος (ēérios, “early in the morning”).^[2][3][4]

The older explanation, which Beekes rejects, took it as a lengthened-grade locative beside the full grade of ἄριστον (ā́rīston, “breakfast”), comparing Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐍂 (air, “early”), Old Norse ár (“early”) and Avestan aiiarə (“day”); but such a lengthened grade is found nowhere else.^[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer has it in the phrase ἦρι μάλα, “very early”, in the Iliad and the Odyssey.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The adverb stayed poetic: Apollonius of Rhodes revives it, and an inscription from Cumae uses it for consulting an oracle in the morning.^[6][5] Ancient grammarians called it Boeotian,^[5][7] and Hesychius glosses it "early, at dawn".^[8] It lives on in compounds: ἠριγένεια (ērigéneia, “early-born”), Homer's epithet of Dawn, and ἠριγέρων (ērigérōn, “early old man”), the name of the groundsel, from the white down of its seed heads.^[2][7]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for early in the morning.^[5][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato's Hippias Minor has it.^[6][9]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus names the groundsel with the compound ἠριγέρων (ērigérōn).^[2][7][9]
• 3rd century BC – Apollonius of Rhodes uses it in his epic.^[6][9]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius glosses it as “early”.^[8][9]

Meanings

Adverb

1. Early, in the morning.^[5][4][1]

Word family

• ἠριγένεια (ērigéneia)
• ἠριγέρων (ērigérōn)

Related words

• ἠέριος (ēérios)
• ἠώς (ēṓs)
• ἄριστον (ā́rīston)

References

1. ^ a b c 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 c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
5. ^ a b c d e f Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c 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
8. ^ a b Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge