Etymologically
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ὥρα

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Pronunciation

  • IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /hɔ̌ː.raː/[1]
  • IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈo.ra/[1]
  • IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈo.ra/[1]

Forms

ὥρᾱ (hṓrā) f (genitive ὥρᾱς); first declension[1] Ionic ὥρη, Aeolic ὤρα; epic genitive plural ὡράων.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *yóh₁r̥ (“year, season”),[1] more exactly *Hyoh₁-r-h₂ with a feminine ending.[3][4] Its cognates are the words for “year”: Gothic 𐌾𐌴𐍂 (jēr), Old High German jār and English year, and Avestan yārə.[3][5][1] Church Slavonic jara means “spring”, and Latin hornus (“of this year”) may keep a trace of the word.[3][5][1]

Beekes thinks the root is probably *Hyeh₁- “to send”, comparing German Geschick (“fate”) from schicken (“to send”).[3] Frisk held that derivations from a verb “to go” had no basis.[3][5] Latin borrowed it as hōra.[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer it is a season, mostly in the plural: “when the fourth year came and the seasons came round”.[6] The season is named by a genitive or adjective, such as ὥρη εἰαρινή “spring” and ὥρη χειμερίη “winter”.[6] The Seasons, Ὧραι, are the gatekeepers of Olympus in the Iliad, and the Odyssey uses ὥρη for the right time, such as the time for sleep.[2]

Semantic evolution

Homer and Hesiod distinguish three seasons, and Alcman is the first to name four.[6] The plural could mean climate, and Herodotus speaks of the cycle of the seasons.[6][2] It was the right time for an activity, such as reaping or sailing, the time of day, and the prime of life, youth and beauty, in Pindar, the tragedians and Aristophanes.[2] Pindar personifies Hora, the goddess of youth.[2]

The sense “hour”, a twelfth of the day from sunrise to sunset, appears in Polybius, the New Testament and Plutarch,[2][7] and ὡρολόγιον (hōrológion) named a sundial or water clock.[3] In the New Testament it is also “the hour” of an appointed event.[8][7]

Modern Greek ώρα (óra) means an hour, a twenty-fourth of the day, and the time for something; in the Orthodox Church the Hours are services.[9][10][4] English hour came from it through Latin hora and Old French, first for the canonical hours, around 1200.[11]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad and the Odyssey use it for a season and for the right time.[6][2]
  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod names the seasons by ὥρη.[6][12]
  • 7th century BC – Alcman names four seasons.[6][12]
  • 5th century BC – Herodotus speaks of the cycle of the seasons.[6][12]
  • 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it for an hour.[2][12]
  • c. 1200 – English hour is first recorded.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A season of the year, and in the plural the seasons or the climate.[6][2]
  2. The right or usual time for something.[2][6]
  3. A time of day.[2]
  4. (Hellenistic) An hour, a twelfth of the day.[2][7]
  5. Youth, prime, beauty.[2]
  6. (plural, personified) The Seasons, the Horae.[2][6]
  7. ἐς ὥρας, for the time to come.[2]

Word family

  • ὡραῖος (hōraîos)
  • ὡρολόγιον (hōrológion)
  • ὡραῖος (hōraîos)
  • ὡρολόγιον (hōrológion)
  • ἄωρος (áōros)

Usage notes

Ionic also had a different ὥρη, a part of a sacrificial victim, and ὤρα with smooth breathing is another word, “care, concern”, related to ὁράω (horáō).[6][3] Plato's Cratylus derives the seasons from ὁρίζω (horízō, “to divide”), because they divide winters from summers.[4]

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 Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  5. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c United Bible Societies (2023), UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament (revised Louw–Nida semantic domains), open-licence ed.
  8. ^ 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. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  10. ^ Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
  11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge