Etymologically
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ὕδρα

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /hý.draː/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈy.ðra/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈy.ðra/[1]

Forms

ῠ̔́δρᾱ (húdrā) f (genitive ῠ̔́δρᾱς); first declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *údrā,[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *udréh₂, the feminine of *udrós, a derivative of the root *wed- (“water”).[1] Beekes and Frisk take it to be an old Indo-European name for a water animal, above all the otter, literally “the one of the water”.[2][3] The word belongs with ὕδωρ (hū́dōr, “water”) and ἔνυδρις (énudris, “otter”).[2]

Cognate with Sanskrit उद्र (udrá, “a water animal”), Avestan udra- (“otter”), Old High German ottar (“otter”), Lithuanian ū́dra, Russian выдра (výdra) and the English word otter.[2][1] The long /ū/ of the Baltic and Slavic forms is secondary, from Winter's law, and Latin lutra (“otter”) took its initial /l/ by folk etymology.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Hesiod's Theogony, of the Lernaean hydra, the many-headed water serpent.[4][5] The masculine ὕδρος (húdros) “water snake” is older still, in the Iliad.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word meant a water serpent, but in practice it was the name of the Lernaean monster killed by Heracles, in Hesiod, Sophocles and Euripides.[4][6][2] Because two heads grew back for each one cut off, “to cut the hydra” was a proverb for useless labour, used by Plato, and the hydra became the type of an enemy that cannot be beaten.[4][6] Herodas has “more many-coloured than a hydra”, which the proverb collections explain as said of crafty people.[4] From Hellenistic times ὕδρα and ὕδρος also named a constellation, already in Eudoxus as cited by Hipparchus.[2][3][4]

Latin borrowed the word as hydra.[7] In Modern Greek ύδρα (ýdra) is a learned word, the name of an aquatic invertebrate as well as of the monster.[8][9] English hydra, from the late 14th century, came through Latin, and was used of “any multiplicity of evils”.[10]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad has the masculine ὕδρος (húdros) for a water snake.[2]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod's Theogony names the Lernaean hydra.[4][5][11]
  • 5th century BC – Sophocles and Euripides use it of the Lernaean hydra.[4][6][11]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato's Republic uses “cutting the hydra” for labour in vain.[4][11]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Aratus uses it for the constellation.[4][11]
  • 3rd century BC – Herodas has the proverb “more many-coloured than a hydra”.[4][11]
  • Late 14th century – English borrows it as hydra.[10]
  • Modern Greek – The learned word Modern Greek ύδρα (ýdra) also names an aquatic invertebrate.[9][8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A water snake, especially the Lernaean hydra killed by Heracles.[4][6]
  2. (figurative) An opponent that cannot be overcome, as in the proverb “to cut the hydra”, of useless effort.[4][6]
  3. (astronomy) The constellation Hydra.[4][2]
  • ὕδρος (húdros)
  • ὕδωρ (hū́dōr)
  • ἔνυδρις (énudris)
  • Latin hydra
  • Latin lutra
  • English hydra
  • English otter

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 i 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  6. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
  8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  9. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge