ὄχος

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /ó.kʰos/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈo.xos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈo.xos/^[1]

Forms

ὄχος (ókhos) m (genitive ὄχου); second declension^[1] Homer has only the neuter plural ὄχεα, ὄχεσφι;^[2][3] Pindar also ὄκχος.^[2][4][3] Mycenaean Greek wo-ka “chariot”, a feminine.^[5][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *wókʰos, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *wóǵʰos, an old verbal noun from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to carry, drive”), the root of Arcadocypriot Greek ϝέχω (wékhō, “to carry”) and of ὀχέω (okhéō).^[2][1][5] It is identical with Old Church Slavonic возъ (vozŭ, “wagon”).^[2][5] The neuter plural ὄχεα (ókhea) of Homer belongs to an s-stem whose expected e-grade survives in the Hesychius gloss ἔχεσφι (ékhesphi, “with chariots”); its o-vowel was taken over from ὄχος.^[2][5] The forms correspond to Sanskrit वाह (vāhá, “draught animal; vessel”).^[2][1]

The initial /w/ was lost already in Homer.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Mycenaean tablets of Pylos have a feminine Mycenaean Greek wo-ka “chariot”.^[5] In Homer, in the neuter plural ὄχεα, it is the war chariot, used even of a single chariot (Iliad 4.419).^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Chantraine notes that the word names the war chariot, an important element of Indo-European civilisation.^[5] The masculine ὄχος appears in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Pindar, Herodotus and tragedy, for a chariot or, more generally, any vehicle on land or sea or through the air;^[4] Callimachus uses it of a team of deer.^[4][2] Euripides calls the wheels the “bearers” of the chariot.^[3] The Odyssey already has the wider sense “anything that holds”, of harbours as holders of ships, and a Hippocratic treatise uses it for certain sinews of the womb.^[3]

The word is mostly poetic: about half of the examples in GLAUx are in Ionic and epic texts.^[6]

Timeline

• Mycenaean – Pylos tablets have Mycenaean Greek wo-ka “chariot”.^[5]
• Homer – The Iliad uses the plural ὄχεα for a chariot.^[3][4]
• Homer – The Odyssey calls harbours holders of ships.^[3]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar and Aeschylus use it for a chariot and for any vehicle.^[4][7]
• 5th century BC – Euripides calls the wheels the bearers of the chariot.^[3][7]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Callimachus uses it of a team of deer.^[4][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A means of transport, a carriage, vehicle.^[4][3]
2. A chariot, for war or racing.^[4][8]
3. A team of animals drawing a chariot.^[4]
4. (plural) The wheels, the bearers of a chariot.^[3]
5. Anything that holds or bears; of harbours, holders of ships.^[3]
6. (medicine, plural) Sinews of the womb.^[3]

Word family

• ὀχεῖον (okheîon)
• πάροχος (párokhos)

Related words

• ὀχέω (okhéō)
• ὄχημα (ókhēma)
• Latin vehō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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
6. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
8. ^ Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son