ῥάξ

Forms

ῥᾱ́ξ (rhā́x) f (genitive ῥᾱγός); third declension^[1] Ionic and later Greek ῥώξ, genitive ῥωγός, found in Archilochus, the Septuagint and Nicander.^[2][3] In the Septuagint the word is sometimes masculine.^[3][2]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, probably a Mediterranean word: it recalls ῥάματα (rhámata, “bunch of grapes”), which Hesychius gives as Macedonian, and Latin racēmus (“stalk of a bunch of grapes”), but is otherwise isolated, and the Indo-European etymologies proposed for it should all be rejected.^[3][4] Chantraine likewise thinks of a substrate word because it belongs to the vocabulary of the vine, and finds the vowel of the variant ῥώξ (rhṓx) unexplained.^[5] Wiktionary also notes the resemblance of Sanskrit रजनी (rájanī, “grape”) and Albanian rrush (“grape”).^[1] PHILOGLOSSA rates the word's status as a loan of high reliability.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is a fragment of Sophocles, where it means a grape.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In Attic prose it is the single berry of a bunch: Plato's Laws speaks of each grape in the bunch, and Aristotle and Theophrastus use it the same way.^[2][6] Dioscorides extended it to other berries, to the seed of the peony and to a clove of garlic.^[2] By resemblance of shape it named a venomous spider, the malmignatte, in Aelian, and in the plural the fingertips, in the medical writers Rufus and Soranus and in Pollux.^[2][5][7] Eustathius records it as the popular word for the nipple.^[2][7]

The Atticist lexica treat ῥάξ as the correct Attic form beside Ionic and later ῥώξ, which the Septuagint uses.^[8][9][2] The vernacular ρώγα (róga), from the 9th century on, meant a grape, the nipple and the inner side of a fingertip.^[10] Modern Greek ρώγα (róga), from the accusative of ῥώξ, is a grape of the bunch and the nipple of the breast.^[11][12]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it for a grape.^[2][6]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato's Laws uses it for each grape in a bunch.^[2]
• 1st century AD – Dioscorides uses it for other berries, the seed of the peony and a clove of garlic.^[2]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Rufus uses the plural for the fingertips.^[2][7]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Aelian uses it for a venomous spider named after its shape.^[2]
• 9th century AD – The vernacular form ρώγα (róga) is first recorded.^[10]
• 12th century AD – Eustathius records it as a popular word for the nipple.^[2][7]
• Modern Greek – ρώγα (róga) means a grape of the bunch and the nipple.^[11][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A grape, a single berry of a bunch.^[2][3]
2. Any berry; also the seed of the peony and a clove of garlic.^[2]
3. A venomous spider, the malmignatte.^[2][3]
4. (in the plural) The fingertips.^[2][5]
5. (Byzantine, colloquial) The nipple.^[2][1]

Word family

• ῥαγίζω (rhagízō)
• ῥαγοειδής (rhagoeidḗs)
• ῥαγώδης (rhagṓdēs)
• ῥαγίον (rhagíon)
• ῥαγικός (rhagikós)

Related words

• Modern Greek ρώγα (róga)
• Latin racēmus

Usage notes

Photius says that ῥάξ is feminine, and that the masculine ῥώξ is both a barbarism and a solecism.^[8] Hesychius explains the word as the grape of the bunch, which in his day was called ῥώξ.^[13] An alchemical text has a homograph ῥάξ, a wind instrument.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 r s Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e 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. ^ Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
7. ^ a b c d e Charbonnet, André (2025), Chæréphon, v4.7: supplement to Bailly from papyri, inscriptions and recent lexica
8. ^ a b Photius, Lexicon, ed. Christos Theodoridis, vol. 1 (Α–Δ) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1982); ed. Richard Porson (Cambridge, 1822)
9. ^ Lexica Segueriana, in Immanuel Bekker, ed. (1814), Anecdota Graeca I, Berlin: Nauck
10. ^ a b Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
12. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
13. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)