ἰξός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /ik.sós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ikˈsos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ikˈsos/^[1]

Forms

ἰξός (ixós) m (genitive ἰξοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

LSJ derives it from *ϝιξός (*wixós),^[2] and it is identical with Latin viscum (“mistletoe, birdlime”).^[3][2][1] It has been compared with the Germanic and Slavic names of the sour cherry, which was also used for birdlime: Old High German wīhsela and Russian вишня (víšnja).^[3][4][5] Chantraine thinks the link with Latin very probable but asks whether the word is Indo-European at all.^[6] Beekes, given its structure and narrow spread, takes it as a loanword from a European language, an old cultural word shared with Latin.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Euripides' Cyclops is the first text with the word, in the sense of birdlime.^[7][2][8]

Semantic evolution

Aristotle names the oak mistletoe with it, and Theophrastus its berry, from which birdlime was made.^[2][8] It also named oak gum used for the same purpose, and any sticky substance, as in Hippocratic recipes and Attic inscriptions.^[2][3] Figuratively it was something that catches and holds: the soul is said to cling to such things like birdlime, and Aristophanes used it of a skinflint.^[2]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept it.^[9] Modern Greek ιξός (iksós), also οξός, names the mistletoe and the sticky substance round its berry.^[10]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of birdlime in the Cyclops.^[2][11]
• 5th century BC – Hippocratic writers use it of a sticky substance.^[2][7][11]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it of the oak mistletoe.^[2][11]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it of the mistletoe berry.^[2][11]
• Modern Greek – Modern Greek ιξός (iksós) means the mistletoe and its glue.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The oak mistletoe.^[2][8]
2. The mistletoe berry.^[2]
3. Birdlime made from the berry; also oak gum used for it.^[2][8]
4. Any sticky substance.^[2]
5. (figurative) Something that holds fast; a skinflint.^[2]

Word family

• ἰξία (ixía)
• ἰξίας (ixíās)
• ἰξίνη (ixī́nē)
• ἰξίον (ixíon)
• ἰξόομαι (ixóomai)
• ἰξοποιέω (ixopoiéō)
• ἰξώδης (ixṓdēs)

Related words

• Latin viscum

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d 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
4. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
8. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ 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. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge