ὡρόσκοπος

Forms

ὡρόσκοπος (hōróskopos) m (genitive ὡροσκόπου); second declension; also accented ὡροσκόπος (hōroskópos).^[1][2]

Etymology

It is a compound from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓrā, “hour, season”) + σκοπός (skopós, “watcher”), “one who watches the hour”, that is, the hour of a birth.^[2][3][4] Babiniotis explains the name the same way: an astrologer drew his conclusions from the hour at which a person was born.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It first appears in the 2nd century AD: Galen speaks of “the herbs of the astrologers”, using the plural of ὡρόσκοπος for those who cast nativities.^[1][6]

Semantic evolution

In the astrology of the Roman period the word also became the technical name of the ascendant, the sign or degree of the zodiac rising at the moment of birth.^[1] Ptolemy, Sextus Empiricus and Porphyry use it so, and Manetho has it as an adjective, “of the ascendant”.^[1][4] In the plural it named certain star gods listed in a London papyrus and in Iamblichus, distinct from the decans.^[1] The verb ὡροσκοπέω (hōroskopéō) means “to be in the ascendant”, said of a zodiacal sign.^[1] Hesychius and the Atticist lexica gloss the word as one who watches the hour.^[7][8][9]

It passed into Latin as horoscopos, and the word reached English as horoscope through French in the mid-16th century; it spread to most European languages.^[10][3][2] Modern Greek has the learned ωροσκόπος (oroskópos), both the astrologer and the sign that rules the hour of birth.^[11][5]

Timeline

• 2nd century AD – Galen writes of the herbs used by astrologers (ὡρόσκοποι).^[1][6]
• 2nd century AD – Ptolemy uses it for the ascendant in his astrological work.^[1]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Sextus Empiricus uses it for the ascendant.^[1][4]
• 3rd century AD – Porphyry and Hippolytus use it.^[1][6]
• 4th century AD – Manetho uses it as an adjective, “of the ascendant”.^[1]
• Mid-16th century – English borrows horoscope through French.^[3]
• Modern Greek – The learned ωροσκόπος (oroskópos) means an astrologer and the sign of one's birth.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A caster of nativities, an astrologer.^[1][2]
2. (astrology) The sign or degree of the zodiac rising at the moment of birth, the ascendant; a horoscope.^[1][4][2]
3. (in the plural) Certain star deities, distinguished from the decans.^[1]

Adjective

1. (astrology) Of the ascendant.^[1][4]

Related words

• ὡροσκοπέω (hōroskopéō)
• ὡροσκοπεῖον (hōroskopeîon)
• ὥρα (hṓrā)
• σκοπός (skopós)
• Latin horoscopus
• English horoscope

Usage notes

LSJ treats the word in one article but marks the accent: the astrologer is paroxytone, ὡρόσκοπος, while the noun for the ascendant is oxytone, ὡροσκόπος.^[1] Wiktionary and Bailly give only the oxytone form.^[2][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
2. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Bailly, Anatole (2020), Dictionnaire grec-français, Bailly 2020 Hugo Chávez ed., ed. Gérard Gréco et al.
5. ^ a b Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ a b c Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
7. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
8. ^ Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck
9. ^ Pseudo-Zonaras, Lexicon, ed. Johann August Heinrich Tittmann (1808), Iohannis Zonarae Lexicon, Leipzig: Crusius
10. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki