ῥόμβος

Forms

ῥόμβος (rhómbos) m (genitive ῥόμβου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is the o-grade noun from Ancient Greek ῥέμβομαι (rhémbomai, “to roam, turn about”), a pair of the same kind as λέγω (légō) and λόγος (lógos); ῥόμβος, found from Pindar on, shows that the verb, recorded only much later, is old.^[2][3][4] The by-form ῥύμβος (rhúmbos), which the grammarians call Attic, is like ῥυφέω (rhuphéō) beside ῥοφέω (rhophéō).^[3][2] The verb has no accepted etymology: a root Proto-Indo-European *wremb- compared with Middle Low German wrimpen (“to wrinkle (the face)”) and the comparison with Lithuanian reñgtis (“to bow”) are both doubtful, and Beekes considers the verb Pre-Greek.^[3][2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pindar, in the 6th–5th century BC, uses it for whirling motion: the whirl of javelins shot forth and the swoop of an eagle.^[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

Euripides names with it the bull-roarer, a piece of wood whirled on a string to make a roaring sound in the rites of Dionysus and Cybele, and it was also a boy's toy.^[5][6] Theocritus has it for the magic wheel spun in love charms, a sense Latin took over in rhombus.^[5][6] It also named the tambourine or drum of the cults of Rhea and Dionysus.^[5]

Aristotle and Euclid use it for the geometrical figure, the rhombus, and because of its shape it named a flat-fish of the turbot kind, a surgical bandage and a woven pattern.^[5][4] In Modern Greek ρόμβος (rómvos) is a learned word for the rhombus and, at sea, for each of the points of the compass.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar uses it of whirling javelins and of an eagle's swoop.^[5][6][10]
• 5th century BC – Euripides uses it of the bull-roarer of the mysteries.^[5][6][10]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle's Mechanics uses it of the geometrical rhombus.^[5][10]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theocritus uses it of a magic wheel.^[5][10]
• 3rd century BC – Euclid defines the rhombus.^[5][10]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Athenaeus says that the Romans call the turbot by this name.^[5][10]
• Modern Greek – ρόμβος (rómvos) is the rhombus and a point of the compass.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Whirling or circular motion.^[5][6]
2. A bull-roarer whirled in mystery cults; also a child's top.^[5][6][3]
3. A magic wheel spun in love charms.^[5][6]
4. A tambourine or drum used in the cults of Rhea and Dionysus.^[5]
5. (geometry) A rhombus, lozenge.^[5][3]
6. A flat-fish of the turbot kind.^[5][3]
7. A rhombus-shaped surgical bandage or woven pattern.^[5]

Word family

• ῥομβοειδής (rhomboeidḗs)

Related words

• ῥέμβομαι (rhémbomai)
• Latin rhombus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
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 d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge