ὠνέομαι

Forms

ὠνέομαι (ōnéomai) ^[1]

Etymology

It is a denominative verb from Ancient Greek ὦνος (ônos, “purchase price”).^[2][1][3] Beekes compares the Sanskrit denominative meaning “to bargain”, and takes both verbs from a form *wos-n-éye-.^[2]

The noun, Aeolic ὄννα (ónna), continues Proto-Indo-European *wósnos (“purchase price”), beside *wésnos, which is seen in Latin vēnum in the phrase “to give for sale”.^[2][4][5] The noun belongs to a primary verb that survives only in Hittite, Hittite wāši (“buys”), with the zero grade in ušniyazi (“offers for sale”).^[2][4] The long vowel of the Greek verb is a difficulty: Beekes does not think a lengthened grade has to be assumed, while Chantraine weighs a lengthened-grade iterative like πωλέομαι (pōléomai).^[2][4] In Attic the augment is syllabic, which shows that the verb once began with /w/.^[4]

The verb had no aorist of its own in early Greek: the aorist “bought” was πρίασθαι (príasthai), from a different root, Proto-Indo-European *kʷreyh₂- (“to buy”).^[4][1][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hesiod's Works and Days is the earliest text: one should honour the gods “so that you may buy another man's plot of land, not another yours” (ὄφρ' ἄλλων ὠνῇ κλῆρον, μὴ τὸν τεὸν ἄλλος).^[6][7] There the present means to try to buy, to bargain for land.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The present stem first meant “to seek to buy, to bargain for”, as in Herodotus, while the completed purchase was expressed by the aorist ἐπριάμην (epriámēn), and Benveniste took this as the original division of labour.^[4][3] In Attic the present came to mean simply “to buy”, used of goods, land, slaves and favours, and an aorist of its own (ὠνήσασθαι), already found in Ionic, appears in Attic inscriptions only in the 1st century BC.^[4][6] In Attic law and finance it was the verb for bidding for the farming of public taxes, and Demosthenes uses it of buying off a danger or a charge, and of bribing people.^[6][3] Cretan made from it an active verb meaning “to sell”.^[4][6]

In Koine the aorist ὠνησάμην spread, beside ἐπριάμην; the New Testament uses the verb once, in Acts, with the genitive of the price.^[8][9] In the end both ὠνέομαι and the old aorist were replaced by ἀγοράζω (agorázō) and its aorist.^[2]

Timeline

• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of buying land.^[6][7]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it of bargaining for goods and of buying, and Euripides and Aristophanes have the future ὠνήσομαι.^[6][4][3]
• 5th–4th century BC – Andocides, Lysias and Xenophon use it of buying the farming of public taxes.^[6]
• 4th century BC – Demosthenes uses it of buying off a danger and of bribing people.^[6][3]
• 1st century BC – The aorist ὠνήσασθαι first appears in Attic inscriptions.^[6][4]
• 1st century AD – The Acts of the Apostles uses it of buying something from someone.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To buy, purchase goods, land or persons, such as slaves; the passive means “to be bought”.^[6][3]
2. (present and imperfect) To offer to buy, to bid or bargain for something.^[6][3]
3. To bid for the farming of public taxes or properties.^[6]
4. To buy off, avert by payment, a danger or a charge.^[6][3]
5. To buy a person, that is, to bribe him.^[6]
6. (Cretan, active ὠνέω) To sell.^[6][4]

Word family

• ὀψωνέω (opsōnéō)
• ὠνητής (ōnētḗs)
• ὠνητιάω (ōnētiáō)
• ὠνατάς (ōnatás)
• ὦνος (ônos)
• ὠνή (ōnḗ)
• ὤνιος (ṓnios)

Usage notes

The aorist was normally supplied by πρίασθαι (príasthai) in Attic.^[3][6] A proverb in Eupolis, “the Chian bought himself a master” (Χῖος δεσπότην ὠνήσατο), uses the aorist that Attic otherwise avoided.^[6] Its opposites are πωλέω (pōléō) and πιπράσκω (pipráskō), “to sell”.^[10]

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 c d e f g h i j k Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
6. ^ 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
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. ^ United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
10. ^ Korinthios, J. (2025), Grande Dizionario Greco Classico: Greco–Italiano, digital ed., Milan: Hoepli