ὀλίγος

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /o.lí.ɡos/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /oˈli.ɣos/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /oˈli.ɣos/^[1]

Forms

ὀλῐ́γος (olígos) m (feminine ὀλῐ́γη, neuter ὀλῐ́γον); first/second declension^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Wiktionary takes it as probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ligos (“needy, small”), and Beekes, with a question mark, also reconstructs a root *h₃lig- (“little”).^[1][2] It may be the same word as Old Armenian աղքատ (ałkʻat, “poor”), from *oliko-; Old Irish líach (“miserable”) and Old Prussian licuts (“small”) are less clear, since they point to a root ending in /k/.^[2][1][4]

Pokorny grouped it with λοιγός (loigós, “ruin, death”) and Albanian lig (“bad, meagre”), but Beekes keeps λοιγός apart, and Frisk and the Βασικό Λεξικό find the link doubtful.^[4][2][5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it mostly of size: a small shield, a low voice, a little patch of ground, a short time.^[6][7][2] The sense “few” is post-Homeric.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

In epic the word means “little, small, slight”; the Odyssey calls a man “small and of no account”, and a gift “small but welcome”.^[6][7][8] From Hesiod and the lyric poets onward it is used more and more of number, “few”, which is its usual sense in Attic prose.^[8][7][2]

In Thucydides and the orators οἱ ὀλίγοι, “the few”, are the ruling group in an oligarchy and the oligarchic party in a democracy, and the compound ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhía) “rule of the few” was formed after μοναρχία (monarkhía).^[7][8][2] Prose developed many fixed phrases from it: ὀλίγου “almost”, κατ᾽ ὀλίγον “little by little”, δι᾽ ὀλίγων “in few words”.^[9][7]

The Septuagint and the New Testament use it for “few” and “a little while” (“the labourers are few”).^[10][11] Medieval Greek had many forms, among them λίγος, which became the everyday Modern Greek word; Modern Greek ολίγος (olígos) survives as a learned word in phrases such as παρ᾽ ολίγο “almost”.^[12][13][1] English oligo- comes from it.^[14]

Timeline

• Homer – “small, little”, of size, voice, space and time.^[6][7]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod contrasts “from few” with “from many”.^[7][8][15]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus says that a force was “too few” to engage the Medes.^[7][15]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses οἱ ὀλίγοι for the oligarchs.^[7][8][15]
• 1st century AD – the New Testament uses it for “few”, as of the labourers in Matthew.^[11][16]
• Medieval Greek – forms such as ελίγος and λίγος appear beside ολίγος.^[12]
• Modern Greek – λίγος is the everyday word; ολίγος is learned.^[13][1]

Meanings

Adjective

1. little, small in size; of a voice, low; of space or time, small, short.^[7][8]
2. Of little account, insignificant.^[8]
3. (plural) few.^[7][8]
4. (of quantity) Little, not much, scanty.^[7][8]
5. (politics) οἱ ὀλίγοι, the few, the oligarchs.^[7][8]
6. (neuter as adverb) ὀλίγον, a little, slightly; ὀλίγου, almost.^[7][6]

Word family

• ὀλιγόπιστος (oligópistos)
• ὀλιγάρχης (oligárkhēs)
• ὀλιγόθερμος (oligóthermos)
• ὀλιγότροφος (oligótrophos)
• ὀλιγαρχία (oligarkhíā)
• ὀλιγάκις (oligákis)
• ὀλιγότης (oligótēs)
• ὀλιγωρέω (oligōréō)

Related words

• English oligarchy
• English oligo-

Usage notes

The comparative and superlative are usually supplied by other words (ἐλάσσων, ἥσσων, μείων); Homer has ὀλίζων and ὀλίγιστος, and Attic inscriptions ὀλείζων, formed after μείζων (meízōn).^[8][2][3]

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 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 Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Βασικό Λεξικό της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής, Portal for the Greek Language, https://www.greek-language.gr
4. ^ a b Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ a b c d Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
7. ^ 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
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1889), An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
13. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
14. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
15. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
16. ^ Abbott-Smith, G. (1922), A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark