ὄχλος

Forms

ὄχλος (ókhlos) m (genitive ὄχλου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Proto-Indo-European *woǵʰ-(s)lo-, a noun of the root *weǵʰ- (“to drive, carry, transport”), which also gave ὄχος (ókhos, “chariot”), ὀχέομαι (okhéomai, “to be carried, ride”), ϝέχω (wékhō, “to bring”) and Latin vehō (“to carry”).^[2][3][1] Its first meaning cannot be established with certainty: Beekes allows an action noun “driving, moving” or an instrument noun “mover, carrier”, and a sense of motion could lead both to “stirred mass, mob” and to “unrest, disturbance”, as with turba.^[2][3] Chantraine also starts from “movement, agitation” and rejects an original “heavy load, mass”.^[4]

Old Norse vagl (“roost, tie-beam”) is formally the same word, and vectis (“lever”) and vǫg (“lever”) match in meaning the denominatives ὀχλίζω (okhlízō, “to heave up”) and ὀχλέω (okhléō, “to roll away; to trouble”).^[2][4] Meillet supposed instead a separate root of the same shape meaning “to shake”, which Chantraine finds arbitrary.^[4]

Byzantine etymologists derived it from ἀχλύς (akhlús, “mist”), because mist troubles the sight, or took the noun from the verb.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Sappho uses it for a crowd or company, and Pindar for a throng of people.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

In Attic it is above all the “crowd”, and in Thucydides, Plato and Xenophon the mass of the people as opposed to its leaders, often with a contemptuous political colour: “mob, populace”, set against the δῆμος (dêmos, “people”).^[4][7][6] In armies it is the main body of the troops, or the camp followers.^[6] It also means a mass of things, such as Aeschylus' “greater mass of words”, and “trouble, annoyance”: Herodotus and Euripides have a phrase meaning “to give trouble”.^[7][6] Polybius has ὀχλοκρατία (okhlokratíā, “mob rule”).^[2][4]

The Septuagint uses it for a crowd, an army, and in Daniel for the peoples.^[8] In the New Testament it occurs only in the Gospels, Acts and Revelation, mostly for a crowd, and it passed into Rabbinic Hebrew.^[9][1] Modern Greek keeps it as a learned, pejorative word, όχλος (óchlos), a crowd ruled by herd instinct, the mob.^[10][5]

Timeline

• 7th–6th century BC – Sappho uses it for a crowd or company.^[6][11]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar and Aeschylus use it for a throng of people.^[7][6][11]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of trouble, and Thucydides of the mob as opposed to the people.^[7][11]
• 2nd century BC – Polybius uses the compound ὀχλοκρατία (okhlokratía), “mob rule”.^[2][4][11]
• 1st century AD – The New Testament uses it in the Gospels, Acts and Revelation for a crowd.^[9]
• Modern Greek – It survives as the learned word όχλος (óchlos), “mob”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A crowd, throng of people.^[7][6]
2. The common people, the masses, as opposed to the rulers; in contempt, the mob, rabble.^[6][7]
3. The population of a city or region.^[6]
4. A body of people: a retinue; in an army, the main body of troops or the camp followers.^[6][7]
5. A great number of things, a mass, multitude.^[7][6]
6. Trouble, annoyance, nuisance.^[7][6][2]

Word family

• ὀχλοκρατία (okhlokratíā)

Related words

• ὄχος (ókhos)
• ὀχέομαι (okhéomai)
• ὀχλέω (okhléō)
• English ochlocracy

Usage notes

Ammonius distinguishes it from πλῆθος (plêthos, “multitude”): a plêthos is a body of people, while ókhlos properly means disturbance.^[12] The Lexica Segueriana note the same two meanings, “trouble” and “multitude”.^[13]

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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Lust, Johan; Eynikel, Erik; Hauspie, Katrin (2003), Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, rev. ed., Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
12. ^ [Ammonius], De adfinium vocabulorum differentia, ed. K. Nickau (Leipzig: Teubner, 1966)
13. ^ Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck