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Etymology and origin of the Ancient Greek word ὗς

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
Homer, Iliad
Inherited from
Proto-Hellenic *hūs
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *suH-

Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /hŷːs/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈys/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈys/[1]

Forms

ὗς (hûs) m or f (genitive ῠ̔ός); third declension[1] Homer prefers σῦς and uses ὗς only for the metre; in Herodotus and Attic ὗς is the usual form.[2][3] Mycenaean has σῦς only, in the compound Mycenaean Greek su-qo-ta “swineherd”.[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Hellenic *hūs,[1] inherited from Proto-Indo-European *suH- (“pig, swine”), the Indo-European word for the pig and the wild boar.[4][1][5] ὗς is the inherited form; the initial /s/ of its equivalent σῦς (sûs) is secondary, perhaps after σίαλος (síalos, “fattened pig”), or that form is a loan from another Indo-European language.[4]

Cognate with Latin sūs, Old English sū, Old High German sū, Avestan hū- and, with further suffixes, Old High German swīn, Tocharian B suwo and the English words swine and sow.[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from the Iliad on, mostly as σῦς: a swine, male or female, wild or tame.[2][6][7] Homer has the white-tusked wild boar, the sow, and fat hogs for a feast.[2]

Semantic evolution

The word covered the boar, the sow and the domestic pig, and could be used of an uncouth, stupid or ugly person.[6][2] It entered many proverbs: Pindar has “Boeotian sow” for stupidity.[2][6] “The pig challenged Athena”, of a dunce taking on the wise, is in Theocritus and Plutarch.[2] Plato says “not every sow would know it”, and Crates has a pig among roses for coarseness in a fine setting.[2] In Aristophanes a woman threatens to “let loose her sow”, her rage.[2] Epicharmus and Archestratus use ὗς (also “sea pig”) as the name of a fish.[4][2]

ὗς is the form of the Septuagint and Polybius, and the Second Letter of Peter quotes the proverb of the sow that has washed only to wallow in the mud again.[2][8]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it, mostly as σῦς, of wild boars and domestic pigs.[2][6][7]
  • 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses “Boeotian sow” of stupidity.[2][6][9]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus uses ὗς ἄγριος of the wild boar.[2][9]
  • 4th century BC – Archestratus uses it for a fish.[4][9]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus has the proverb of the pig that challenged Athena.[2][9]
  • New Testament – The Second Letter of Peter quotes the proverb of the washed sow.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A swine of either sex, wild or domestic: boar, sow, pig.[2][6]
  2. (figurative) An uncivilised, stupid or ugly person.[6]
  3. A sea fish.[4][2]

Word family

  • συβώτης (subṓtēs)
  • ὑφορβός (huphorbós)
  • συφορβός (suphorbós)
  • σύαγρος (súagros)

Usage notes

LSJ records a separate Doric ὗς “whither” (for οἷ (hoî)), in an inscription from Mycenae, and “thither” in Hesychius' gloss ὕσειμι (húseimi) “I go there”.[2][10]

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 j k l m n o p q Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ a b 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 c d e f g 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
  5. ^ Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  8. ^ 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
  9. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
  10. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Ὗς.” Etymologically, 25 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/grc/%E1%BD%97%CF%82. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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