ὄμπνη

Forms

ὄμπνη (ómpnē) f (genitive ὄμπνης); first declension^[1] Also ὄμπη, the reading of the manuscripts in Callimachus and Nicander.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek: following Furnée, he takes the Hesychius gloss ὀμφύνω (omphúnō, “to increase, honour”) as a variant stem ὀμφυν- (omphun-), and the form ὄμπη (ómpē) shows that the -ν- is a suffix.^[2][5]

Since Curtius it has been connected with Sanskrit अप्नस् (ápnas-, “produce, wealth”), Old Norse efni (“material”) and Old English æfnan (“to carry out”), and perhaps Hittite ḫappinant- (“rich”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep- (“to work, produce”), with the inner nasal explained as an anticipation of the suffix and the form without it as a later dissimilation.^[6][3][1] Chantraine links these o-grade forms with Latin ops (“wealth”) and opus (“work”).^[3][7] Beekes calls the nasal explanation ad hoc and doubtful.^[2] ἄφενος (áphenos, “wealth”) is unrelated.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Callimachus uses the plural for sacrificial cakes of meal and honey; a line of Sositheus has the singular for bread-corn, but only by an editor's conjecture.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

Hesychius glosses it “food, prosperity”, and Lycophron uses it for grain.^[8][9][10] Nicander calls honeycombs by this name.^[4][3] The adjective ὄμπνιος (ómpnios), “of corn, nourishing, fruitful”, is older, found already in a fragment of Sophocles, and Ὄμπνια was an epithet of Demeter.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses the derived adjective ὄμπνιος (ómpnios).^[2][3][11]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses the plural for cakes of meal and honey.^[4][3][11]
• 2nd century BC – Nicander calls honeycombs by this name.^[4][3][11]
• 5th century AD (probably) – Hesychius glosses it “food, prosperity”.^[8][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. Food, nourishment.^[4][1][8]
2. Bread-corn, grain.^[4][9][10]
3. (in the plural) Sacrificial cakes of meal and honey.^[4][3]
4. (in the plural) Honeycombs.^[4][3]

Word family

• ὄμπνιος (ómpnios)

Related words

• Latin ops

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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 d e f g h i j k l 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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
7. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
8. ^ a b c Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
9. ^ a b Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
10. ^ a b Pape, Wilhelm (1914), Griechisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 3rd ed., rev. Max Sengebusch, Braunschweig: Vieweg
11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge