Etymologically
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ὁμός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /ho.mós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /oˈmos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /oˈmos/[1]

Forms

ὁμός (homós) m (feminine ὁμή, neuter ὁμόν); first/second declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *homós, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *somHós (“same, alike”).[1][2] Beekes writes the form *somh₂-ó-: the root ended in a laryngeal, because Sanskrit shows no lengthening of the vowel by Brugmann's Law.[2] It is an old word for “one and the same”, identical with Sanskrit सम (samá, “same, equal”), Old Persian hama, Old Norse samr and Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌼𐌰 (sama), with relatives such as the English word same.[2][3][4] Wiktionary adds Old Church Slavonic самъ (samŭ).[1] The initial /s/ became the rough breathing, as usual in Greek.[1]

Within Greek it is related to εἷς (heîs, “one”), ἕτερος (héteros), ἅμα (háma, “together”) and the prefix ἁ- (ha-) meaning “together, one”.[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Homer uses it of what is shared by all or by two: the same shout, a common parentage, a shared marriage bed, the same fate, one urn for the bones of two friends.[4][5]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective ὁμός stayed a word of epic and high poetry: Hesiod, Parmenides, Apollonius of Rhodes and Callimachus use it, and Parmenides has the phrase “to come into one”.[4][5][6] The prose of every period used instead its derivatives: ὅμοιος (hómoios, “like, similar”), the adverbs ὁμῶς (homôs, “equally”) and ὅμως (hómōs, “nevertheless”), ὁμοῦ (homoû, “together”), and a great many compounds in ὁμο-, such as Homer's ὁμόφρων (homóphrōn, “like-minded”).[2]

That first element gave English the learned prefix homo-, “same, equal”, used from the mid-19th century and often opposed to hetero-.[7]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it of a shared shout, parentage, fate and grave.[4][5][6]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Parmenides uses it in his poem, of things coming together into one.[4][5][8]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses it of a path trodden by others.[4][5][8]
  • 19th century – English forms words with the prefix homo- from its combining form.[7]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. One and the Same, shared by all; of fighting, all together.[4][5]
  2. Common to two, joint: of parentage, a bed, a fate, an urn.[4][5]
  3. (neuter as a noun) That which is like something else.[5]
  4. (in the phrase εἰς ὁμά) Together.[5]

Word family

  • ὅμοιος (hómoios)
  • ὁμῶς (homôs)
  • ὅμως (hómōs)
  • ὁμοῦ (homoû)
  • ὁμόσε (homóse)
  • ὁμόφρων (homóphrōn)
  • ὁμαλός (homalós)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  6. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge