ῥάκος

Forms

ῥάκος (rhákos) n (genitive ῥάκεος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Hesychius' glosses βράκετον (bráketon) and βράκαλον (brákalon) point to an initial /w/, so an older *wrákos.^[2][3] Aeolic βράκος (brákos) is the same word, though Beekes doubts that its plural βράκεα (brákea), used of fine women's garments, belongs here.^[2][4]

The traditional comparison is with Sanskrit वृश्चति (vṛścáti, “to hew, fell trees”), with a root Proto-Indo-European *wresk- from an older *wrek-sk-, which Chantraine calls very hypothetical.^[3][5] Beekes rejects the Sanskrit link and considers another one with the Indo-Iranian word for “tree”, Sanskrit वृक्ष (vṛkṣá-), highly uncertain; there are no clear cognates outside Greek, and the word could well be Pre-Greek.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It appears in the Odyssey (never in the Iliad), of a worn piece of cloth and of the rags Odysseus wears as a beggar.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

From Homer on it means a tattered garment or a rag, and in the plural rags, in Herodotus, Sophocles and Aristophanes.^[6][4] It was used of any strip of cloth (a patch in the Gospel of Matthew), of lint for dressings in Hippocratic medicine, and figuratively of tatters: in Aeschylus of the flesh torn from Prometheus by the eagle, in Aristophanes of the wrinkles of an old woman's face.^[6][4]

Modern Greek ράκος (rákos) is a learned word for a torn garment and, figuratively, for a person who is broken in body or spirit.^[8][9]

Timeline

• Homer – The Odyssey uses it for the rags of Odysseus.^[7][6]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it of the tatters of Prometheus' flesh.^[6][4][10]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for strips of cloth;^[6][10] Hippocratic writers for lint.^[6][10]
• 1st century AD – The Gospel of Matthew uses it for a patch of cloth.^[6][4]
• Modern Greek – Modern Greek ράκος (rákos) survives as a learned word for a rag and for a wreck of a person.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ragged or tattered garment; in the plural, rags, tatters.^[6][4]
2. (plural, Aeolic and Theocritus) Garments, women's dresses.^[4]
3. A strip or piece of cloth, a patch.^[6][4]
4. (medicine) Rag, lint.^[6]
5. (figurative) Tatters, of torn flesh or a ruined house; in the plural, the wrinkles of a face.^[6][4]

Word family

• ῥάκιον (rhákion)
• ῥακόδυτος (rhakódutos)
• ῥάκινος (rhákinos)
• ῥακόεις (rhakóeis)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 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 h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
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 Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
10. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge