ὀστέον

Forms

ὀστέον (ostéon) n (genitive ὀστέου); second declension^[1] Attic contracted ὀστοῦν, plural ὀστᾶ, Aeolic plural ὄστια, Doric ὀστία, epic genitive and dative ὀστεόφι(ν).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ésth₁ (“bone”),^[1] the old Indo-European word for “bone”, which the daughter languages reshaped in various ways.^[5][6][7] It was a neuter root noun, as Avestan ast- and Latin os (genitive ossis) still show.^[5][6] Sanskrit अस्थि (ásthi) has a stem alternating between i and n and Hittite ḫaštāi an ablauting i-stem.^[5][6] Beekes reconstructs *h₃esth₁-, with the initial laryngeal fixed by the Latin vowel and the final one by the Greek ending.^[5] He explains that ending from *-ei-o-, a thematized full grade of the suffix *-i-.^[5] IE-CoR sets up *h₂ost- instead.^[7] Also cognate with Old Armenian ոսկր (oskr) and Albanian asht.^[1][7]

Chantraine counts ὄστρακον (óstrakon, “potsherd”), ἀστράγαλος (astrágalos, “knucklebone”) and ἀστακός (astakós, “lobster”) as related, but Beekes rejects them.^[3][5] Herodian derived it from ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to make stand”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is a bone pierced by a spear point, and the bleached bones of the dead.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

From Homer on it was the bone as part of the body and, in the plural, the skeleton and the bones left after death, to be gathered and buried.^[4][2] Hesiod has it only in the plural, of the bones of sacrificial animals as the gods' portion.^[2][4] Herodotus and Plutarch use the plural for revered relics.^[4] Illness and pain were said to afflict the bones (Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato), and so was love (Archilochus, Theocritus).^[4] From the 3rd century BC papyri use it for the stone of a fruit.^[5][3]

The New Testament has both the uncontracted and the contracted forms.^[10] Modern Greek οστό (ostó) is a learned word, remade from the plural ὀστᾶ after other neuters; beside it Modern Greek has κόκαλο (kókalo), from medieval κόκκαλον.^[11][12] English has its stem in the learned prefix osteo-.^[13]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it of bones in the body and the bones of the dead.^[9][2]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses the plural of the bones of a sacrificial ox.^[2][4][14]
• 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writers use it often in medicine, and Herodotus of relics.^[2][4][14]
• 3rd century BC – Papyri use it for the stone of a fruit.^[5][3]
• 1st century AD – The Gospel of John uses the contracted ὀστοῦν in a quotation of Exodus.^[10]
• Modern Greek – The learned οστό (ostó) continues it beside κόκαλο (kókalo).^[11][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bone; in the plural, the bones as the framework of the body.^[2][4]
2. In the plural, the bones of the dead, the remains to be buried; relics.^[4][2]
3. The bones of sacrificial animals, as the gods' portion.^[4]
4. The stone of a fruit.^[5][3]

Word family

• ὁλόστεον (holósteon)
• ὀστάριον (ostárion)
• ὀστέϊνος (ostéïnos)

Related words

• Latin os
• English osteo-

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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ a b c Heggarty, Paul, et al. (2023), Indo-European Cognate Relationships (IE-CoR), Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, https://iecor.clld.org
8. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
9. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
13. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge