ἰδιώτης

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /i.di.ɔ̌ː.tɛːs/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /i.ðiˈo.tis/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /i.ðiˈo.tis/^[1]

Forms

ῐ̓δῐώτης (idiṓtēs) m (genitive ῐ̓δῐώτου); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Ancient Greek ἴδιος (ídios, “one's own, private”) + -ώτης (-ṓtēs),^[1][2][3] with the suffix of δεσμώτης (desmṓtēs, “prisoner”) and θιασώτης (thiasṓtēs, “member of a thiasos”).^[2] An Argive word for the same office, written ϝhεδιεστας, shows that ἴδιος once began with *ϝhε-.^[3]

ἴδιος (ídios) comes from Proto-Hellenic *hwédios, from Proto-Indo-European *swéd-yo-s, a derivative of the reflexive *swé (“self”), also seen in ἕ (hé, “him, her”).^[1][3] Frisk mentions as possible a connection with Sanskrit वि (ví, “apart”) instead.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Herodotus, for a private man as opposed to a king or to those in public life.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Attic it was the private person as against the state, and the private citizen as against anyone holding office: a magistrate, a judge, a politician or an orator.^[4][5] Xenophon uses it of a private soldier as opposed to a general.^[4][5] From this came the layman as against the expert: the physician (Thucydides on the plague), the poet (Plato calls the prose writer an ἰδιώτης), the athlete, the craftsman or the philosopher; with a genitive it means unskilled in something.^[4][5][6] Aristophanes jokes about Euripides' “private gods”.^[4][5] In later Greek it also meant a common man of low rank, and as an adjective “everyday”, of speech.^[4][7]

The Rosetta Stone uses it for laymen as against priests, and in the New Testament it is the outsider or uninstructed person, as in Paul's question how the uninstructed can say “Amen” to a thanksgiving.^[4][6][8]

Medieval vernacular Greek used it for a commoner, a layman as opposed to a cleric, and as an adjective for low, boorish and illiterate.^[9][2] Modern Greek ιδιώτης (idiótis) is a private individual, not a public official; its psychiatric sense, a person with severe mental disability, was taken from French idiot, which came through Latin idiota from ἰδιώτης.^[10][2]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for a private man, as opposed to a king.^[4][5]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides contrasts the layman with the physician.^[4][5]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for a private soldier.^[4][5]
• 2nd century BC – The Rosetta Stone uses it for laymen, as opposed to priests.^[4]
• 1st century AD – Paul uses it for the uninstructed in a congregation.^[6][4]
• 1100–1669 – Medieval vernacular Greek uses it for a layman and an illiterate person.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A private person, an individual, as opposed to the state.^[4][5]
2. A private citizen, without office, as opposed to a king, magistrate or politician.^[4][5]
3. A common man; a private soldier.^[4][5]
4. A layman, without professional skill, as opposed to an expert.^[4][5]
5. (with genitive) One unskilled in something.^[4]
6. (adjectival) Private; of speech, everyday.^[4]
7. A layman, as opposed to a priest.^[4]
8. (New Testament) An outsider, an uninstructed person.^[6][8]

Word family

• ἰδιωτικός (idiōtikós)
• ἰδιωτεύω (idiōteúō)
• ἰδιωτεία (idiōteía)

Related words

• ἴδιος (ídios)
• ἰδίωμα (idíōma)
• Latin idiōta
• English idiot
• English idiom

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
3. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
6. ^ 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
7. ^ Spicq, Ceslas (1994), Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, tr. James D. Ernest, 3 vols, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
9. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki