ὄφελος

Forms

ὄφελος (óphelos) n (genitive ὀφέλους); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *opʰelos,^[1] from Indo-European *h₃bʰel- (“to increase, augment”).^[2][1] Beekes calls it the old verbal noun beside ὀφέλλω (ophéllō, “to increase, further”), and identifies it directly with the Armenian stem seen in Old Armenian աւելի (aweli, “more”) and յաւելում (yawelum, “I add”).^[2][1] Many scholars think that ὀφείλω (opheílō, “to owe”) has the same root, but the semantic history (whether “increase” or “sweep” came first) is debated.^[2] Pokorny cites the meaning “to sweep” from Greek ὄφελμα (óphelma, “broom”) and Armenian.^[3]

Compounds have a lengthened vowel, as in ἀνωφελής (anōphelḗs, “useless”), replacing an older form seen in Mycenaean Greek no-pe-re-a2 “useless”; from such compounds came the verb ὠφελέω (ōpheléō, “to help”).^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad it means use or help: “in case we can be of any use”, and someone “was a help to you in many things”.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

The word is used only in the nominative and accusative singular, often in questions and negations: “what good is it?”, “no use”.^[5][8] With a genitive, from the 5th century BC, it means the use of something: Xenophon says an idle farmer is good for nothing, and Demosthenes that a knife that does not cut is no use to a cook.^[5][6] Aeschines quotes Demosthenes ironically calling someone “the great benefit of the city”.^[5]

In the New Testament the Letter of James asks τί τὸ ὄφελος, “what good is it?”, and Paul “what good is it to me?”.^[8] Medieval Greek kept the word,^[9] and Modern Greek όφελος (ófelos) means benefit or profit; despite their common origin it is spelled with ο, while ωφελώ keeps ω.^[10][4]

Timeline

• 8th century BC – The Iliad uses it for help or use.^[5][7]
• 6th century BC – Theognis and the Homeric Hymn to Hermes use it.^[5][11]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato and Xenophon use it with a genitive for the use of someone or something.^[5][6]
• 1st century AD – The Letter of James asks “what is the use?”.^[8]
• Modern Greek – It means benefit or profit.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Furtherance, advantage, help, use; of a person, someone of use.^[5][6][8]
2. With a genitive, the use or benefit to be had from someone or something.^[5][6]
3. With an infinitive, the use of doing something: “what good is it to …?”.^[5][6]

Word family

• ἀνωφελής (anōphelḗs)
• ὠφελέω (ōpheléō)

Related words

• ὀφείλω (opheílō)
• ὀφέλλω (ophéllō)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
4. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
8. ^ a b c d 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
9. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux