ὄργια

Forms

ὄργῐᾰ (órgia) n (genitive ὀργῐ́ων); second declension^[1] The singular ὄργιον (órgion) is rare and late, though an inscription from Erythrae of the 4th century BC has it.^[2][3]

Etymology

Beekes, Frisk and Chantraine give the traditional explanation, which Chantraine and Frisk consider the most likely: it is formed from the root of ἔργον (érgon, “work”) and ἔρδω (érdō, “to do, to sacrifice”), with the o-grade seen in ὄργανον (órganon, “instrument”).^[4][5][3] The rites would then be "the things done", a sense parallel to the use of δρώμενα (drṓmena) for sacred acts.^[3][5] The root is Proto-Indo-European *werǵ- (“to do, work”).^[6][7][1]

Beekes also asks whether it belongs instead with ὀργή (orgḗ, “temper, anger”) and ὀργάω (orgáō, “to swell, be ripe”), and Chantraine in 1933 considered a foreign origin because of the meaning.^[4][5] Chantraine's dictionary adds that popular etymology linked the word with anger, above all in the worship of Dionysus.^[3] The New Pauly does not rule out a connection with the Mycenaean adjective Mycenaean Greek wo-ro-ki-jo-ne-jo.^[8]

Ancient writers had other ideas: the Etymologicum Magnum explains the Dionysiac rites from the sacred meadows (ὀργάς (orgás)) where they were held, from being in a frenzy of inspiration, or from ὀρέγω (orégō, “to reach out, to desire”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is post-Homeric.^[2] In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter it names the secret rites of Demeter at Eleusis.^[2][10][8]

Semantic evolution

In the 5th century BC it could mean religious rites and sacrifices in general, as in an inscription of the guild of singers at Miletus and in Aeschylus and Sophocles.^[2][3] Most often it named the rites of mystery cults: of Demeter, of the Cabeiri and of Orpheus in Herodotus, of Cybele and above all of Dionysus, as in Euripides' Bacchae.^[2][10] Used figuratively, Aristophanes speaks of the rites of the Muses and of Aphrodite, that is of poetry and of love, and a Hippocratic treatise of the mysteries of knowledge.^[2][10] In Theocritus it means the secret cult objects of Dionysus.^[10] The derived verb ὀργιάζω (orgiázō) meant to celebrate such rites or to initiate someone into them, and ὀργεών (orgeṓn) was the member of a religious brotherhood at Athens.^[5][3]

Latin borrowed the word as Latin orgia.^[11] English took orgies in the 1560s for the secret rites of Greek and Roman gods, from French and Latin and directly from Greek, and the singular orgy came to mean a licentious revel in the 1660s.^[7] Modern Greek όργιο (órgio) is a learned word for the ancient ecstatic rites and, after French orgie, for debauched parties.^[12]

Timeline

• Homeric Hymns – The Hymn to Demeter uses it of the mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis.^[2][13]
• 5th century BC – An inscription from Miletus uses it of rites in general, and Herodotus and Euripides of mystery cults.^[2][14]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes speaks of the “rites of the Muses”.^[2][14]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses it of the secret cult objects of Dionysus.^[10][14]
• 1560s – English borrows orgies for the secret rites of the ancient gods.^[7]
• 1660s – English orgy is first used for any wild revel.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Secret rites of a mystery cult, practised by the initiated: of Demeter at Eleusis, of the Cabeiri, of Cybele and above all of Dionysus.^[2][10]
2. Religious rites and sacrifices in general.^[2][10]
3. (figurative) Mysteries of something other than religion: of love, of poetry, of knowledge.^[2][10]
4. The secret objects used in the cult of Dionysus.^[10]

Word family

• ὀργιάζω (orgiázō)
• ὀργιαστής (orgiastḗs)
• ὀργιαστικός (orgiastikós)
• ὀργεών (orgeṓn)

Related words

• ἔργον (érgon)
• ὄργανον (órganon)
• Latin orgia
• English orgy

Usage notes

The Etymologicum Magnum glosses it as the mysteries, properly those of Dionysus, and Hesychius and Photius as sacred things and mysteries.^[9][15][16]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f 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 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
5. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
6. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b Gaisford, Thomas, ed. (1848), Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
11. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
12. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
13. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
14. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
15. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
16. ^ Photius, Lexicon, ed. Christos Theodoridis, vol. 1 (Α–Δ) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982); ed. Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1822)