ὄψον

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /óp.son/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈop.son/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈop.son/^[1]

Forms

ὄψον (ópson) n (genitive ὄψου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes finds convincing Taillardat's analysis: it is a thematized noun from an adverb *ὄψ (*óps, “on top”), which is reconstructed from ὀψέ (opsé, “late”) and ὄψι (ópsi) and matches Latin obs-.^[2][1] That adverb is Proto-Indo-European *h₁op-s, a derivative of *h₁epi (“on, near”).^[1] The ὄψον was a side dish, always eaten on top of grain or bread, and Beekes compares Mycenaean Greek o-pi and other Greek verbs of eating with the prefix ⟨ἐπι-⟩ for a supplementary meal.^[2][1]

Chantraine and Frisk call the word unexplained.^[3][4] Schulze divided it ⟨ὄ-ψ-ον⟩, “what is chewed”, relating it to ψῆν (psên, “to rub”) and ψωμός (psōmós, “morsel”), and older scholars connected it with ἕψω (hépsō, “to boil”) and ὀπτός (optós, “roasted”).^[3][4]

Ancient writers made similar guesses: Athenaeus reports a derivation from boiling or from roasting, Plutarch from the word for “late”, because people dined late, and the Etymologicum Gudianum from optós.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad an onion is a relish to wine and a child is given tasty morsels, and in the Odyssey it is the food packed with bread and wine for a journey.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

In classical Greek ὄψον was whatever was eaten with the staple bread or barley cake: vegetables, onions, olives, cheese, sometimes meat and often fish.^[3][6][7] Thucydides lists it beside bread and wine as provisions.^[7] Aristophanes, Plato and Xenophon use it for a cooked dish and for fine, elaborate cooking, set against plain food.^[6][7] Xenophon says that hunger serves as relish, and Pindar calls words a treat for the envious.^[7][6]

At Athens fish was the chief delicacy, and the word meant fish above all: Plutarch says that fish alone won the name, papyri of the 3rd century BC use it collectively for fish, and in Aristophanes the fish market is called by it.^[7][2] The diminutive ὀψάριον (opsárion), often “fish” from Aristophanes on, gave Modern Greek ψάρι (psári), the ordinary word for fish.^[3] Latin borrowed paropsis from the derivative παροψίς (paropsís), a side dish.^[1]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for relish and provisions eaten with bread.^[7][6][8]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it figuratively of words as a treat for the envious.^[7][9]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides lists it with bread and wine as provisions.^[7][9]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for the fish market, and Plato and Xenophon for cooked dishes.^[7][6][9]
• 3rd century BC – Papyri use it collectively for fish.^[7]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch says that fish alone won the name ὄψον.^[7][9]
• Modern Greek – The diminutive survives as Modern Greek ψάρι (psári) “fish”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Food eaten with bread or grain, a relish: vegetables, olives, cheese, meat or fish.^[7][6]
2. Provisions, fresh food, especially for travellers or soldiers.^[6][7]
3. A cooked dish, especially a fine or elaborate one, and cuisine.^[6][7]
4. A tasty morsel, and figuratively a treat.^[6][7]
5. (Attic) Fish, the delicacy par excellence.^[7]
6. The fish market.^[7]

Word family

• ὀψάριον (opsárion)
• ὀψώνιον (opsṓnion)
• ὀψοφάγος (opsophágos)
• ὀψωνέω (opsōnéō)
• παροψίς (paropsís)

Related words

• ὀψέ (opsé)
• Latin paropsis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ 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 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 k l m n o p q r Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge