greek root for thesis

• 1.1 Etymology
• 1.2 Pronunciation
• 1.3.1 Inflection
• 1.3.2 Derived terms
• 1.3.3 Descendants
• 1.4 References

Ancient Greek [ edit ]

Etymology [ edit ].

From τίθημι ( títhēmi , “ I put, place ” ) +‎ -σις ( -sis ) , although it could either have been formed in Greek or go back earlier. In the latter case, would be from a Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁tis , from *dʰeh₁- (root of τίθημι ( títhēmi ) ). Cognates include Sanskrit अपिहिति ( ápihiti ) , Avestan 𐬀𐬭𐬋𐬌𐬛𐬍𐬙𐬌 ( arōidīti ) , Latin conditiō , and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌳𐌴𐌸𐍃 ( gadēþs ) . More at deed .

Pronunciation [ edit ]

• IPA ( key ) : /tʰé.sis/ → /ˈθe.sis/ → /ˈθe.sis/
• ( 5 th BCE Attic ) IPA ( key ) : /tʰé.sis/
• ( 1 st CE Egyptian ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈtʰe.sis/
• ( 4 th CE Koine ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈθe.sis/
• ( 10 th CE Byzantine ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈθe.sis/
• ( 15 th CE Constantinopolitan ) IPA ( key ) : /ˈθe.sis/

Noun [ edit ]

θέσῐς • ( thésis )  f ( genitive θέσεως ) ; third declension

• a setting , placement , arrangement
• adoption (of a child)
• adoption (in the more general sense of accepting as one's own)
• ( philosophy ) position , conclusion , thesis
• ( dance ) putting down the foot
• ( metre ) the last half of the foot
• ( rhetoric ) affirmation
• ( grammar ) stop

Inflection [ edit ]

Derived terms [ edit ].

• ἀνάθεσις ( anáthesis )
• ἀντένθεσις ( anténthesis )
• ἀντεπίθεσις ( antepíthesis )
• ἀντίθεσις ( antíthesis )
• ἀντιμετάθεσις ( antimetáthesis )
• ἀντιπαράθεσις ( antiparáthesis )
• ἀπόθεσις ( apóthesis )
• διάθεσις ( diáthesis )
• εἴσθεσις ( eísthesis )
• ἔκθεσις ( ékthesis )
• ἐναπόθεσις ( enapóthesis )
• ἔνθεσις ( énthesis )
• ἐπείσθεσις ( epeísthesis )
• ἐπέκθεσις ( epékthesis )
• ἐπένθεσις ( epénthesis )
• ἐπίθεσις ( epíthesis )
• ἐπιπρόσθεσις ( epiprósthesis )
• ἐπισύνθεσις ( episúnthesis )
• ἡμισύνθεσις ( hēmisúnthesis )
• κατάθεσις ( katáthesis )
• μετάθεσις ( metáthesis )
• παράθεσις ( paráthesis )
• παρέκθεσις ( parékthesis )
• παρένθεσις ( parénthesis )
• περίθεσις ( períthesis )
• προδιάθεσις ( prodiáthesis )
• προέκθεσις ( proékthesis )
• πρόθεσις ( próthesis )
• πρόσθεσις ( prósthesis )
• συγκατάθεσις ( sunkatáthesis )
• συναντίθεσις ( sunantíthesis )
• συνεπίθεσις ( sunepíthesis )
• σύνθεσις ( súnthesis )
• ὑπέκθεσις ( hupékthesis )
• ὑπέρθεσις ( hupérthesis )
• ὑπόθεσις ( hupóthesis )

Descendants [ edit ]

References [ edit ].

• “ θέσις ”, in Liddell & Scott ( 1940 ) A Greek–English Lexicon , Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ θέσις ”, in Liddell & Scott ( 1889 ) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon , New York: Harper & Brothers
• θέσις in Bailly, Anatole ( 1935 ) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français , Paris: Hachette
• Bauer, Walter et al. ( 2001 ) A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature , Third edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
• “ θέσις ”, in Slater, William J. ( 1969 ) Lexicon to Pindar , Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• θέσις in Trapp, Erich, et al. ( 1994–2007 ) Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität besonders des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts [ the Lexicon of Byzantine Hellenism, Particularly the 9th–12th Centuries ], Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
• assumption idem, page 48.
• caution idem, page 119.
• deposit idem, page 212.
• earnest idem, page 259.
• hypothesis idem, page 412.
• place idem, page 616.
• position idem, page 628.
• site idem, page 779.
• situation idem, page 780.
• station idem, page 813.
• supposition idem, page 842.
• thesis idem, page 865.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. ( 2010 ) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10 ), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN

• Ancient Greek terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
• Ancient Greek terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁-
• Ancient Greek terms suffixed with -σις
• Ancient Greek terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European
• Ancient Greek 2-syllable words
• Ancient Greek terms with IPA pronunciation
• Ancient Greek lemmas
• Ancient Greek nouns
• Ancient Greek paroxytone terms
• Ancient Greek feminine nouns
• Ancient Greek third-declension nouns
• Ancient Greek feminine nouns in the third declension
• grc:Philosophy
• grc:Rhetoric
• grc:Grammar
• Sanskrit terms with non-redundant manual transliterations
• Avestan terms with redundant transliterations
• Ancient Greek terms with redundant script codes

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Definition of thesis

Did you know.

In high school, college, or graduate school, students often have to write a thesis on a topic in their major field of study. In many fields, a final thesis is the biggest challenge involved in getting a master's degree, and the same is true for students studying for a Ph.D. (a Ph.D. thesis is often called a dissertation ). But a thesis may also be an idea; so in the course of the paper the student may put forth several theses (notice the plural form) and attempt to prove them.

Examples of thesis in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thesis.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

in sense 3, Middle English, lowering of the voice, from Late Latin & Greek; Late Latin, from Greek, downbeat, more important part of a foot, literally, act of laying down; in other senses, Latin, from Greek, literally, act of laying down, from tithenai to put, lay down — more at do

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3a(1)

Dictionary Entries Near thesis

the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children

thesis novel

Cite this Entry

“Thesis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thesis. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of thesis, more from merriam-webster on thesis.

Nglish: Translation of thesis for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of thesis for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about thesis

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Plural of Thesis

The Quick Answer

The Plural of Thesis

Table of Contents

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The standard rules for forming the plurals, why is there confusion over the plural of thesis.

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• Meaning of θέσις

θέσις ( Ancient Greek)

Origin & history.

• a setting , placement , arrangement
• adoption (of a child)
• adoption (in the more general sense of accepting as one's own)
• ( philosophy ) position , conclusion , thesis
• ( dancing ) putting down the foot
• ( metre ) the last half of the foot
• ( rhetoric ) affirmation
• ( grammar ) stop

▾  Derived words & phrases

• ἀντεπίθεσις
• ἀντιμετάθεσις
• ἀντιπαράθεσις
• ἐπιπρόσθεσις
• ἐπισύνθεσις
• ἡμισύνθεσις
• προδιάθεσις
• συγκατάθεσις
• συναντίθεσις
• συνεπίθεσις

▾  Descendants

• Latin: thesis

▾  Dictionary entries

Entries where "θέσις" occurs:

thesis : thesis (English) Origin & history From Latin thesis, from Ancient Greek θέσις ("a proposition, a statement, a thing laid down, thesis in rhetoric, thesis in prosody") Pronunciation IPA: /ˈθiːsɪs/ Pronunciation example: Audio (US) Rhymes:…

deed : …action"), Swedish and Danish dåd ("act, action"). The Proto-Indo-European root is also the source of Ancient Greek θέσις ("setting, arrangement"). Related to do. Pronunciation IPA: /diːd/ Pronunciation example: Audio (US) Rhymes:…

tes : …Origin & history I Noun tes Indefinite genitive singular of te Origin & history II From Latin thesis and Ancient Greek θέσις ("a proposition, a statement"), used in Swedish since 1664. Noun tes (common gender) a thesis, a statement…

Tat : …Low German Daat‎, Dutch daad‎, English deed‎, Danish dåd‎, Gothic 𐌳𐌴𐌸𐍃‎, and Ancient Greek θέσις ‎ ("arrangement"). Pronunciation IPA: /taːt/ Rhymes: -aːt Homophones: tat Noun Tat (fem.) (genitive Tat…

antithesis : antithesis (English) Origin & history From Ancient Greek ἀντί ("against") + θέσις ("position"). Surface analysis anti- + thesis. Pronunciation (Amer. Eng.) IPA: /ænˈtɪ.θə.sɪs/ Pronunciation example: Audio (US) Examples:…

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Cite this page : "θέσις" – WordSense Online Dictionary (16th April, 2024) URL: https://www.wordsense.eu/θέσις/

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θέσκελος (Ancient Greek)

θές (Ancient Greek)

θέτης (Ancient Greek)

θέτο (Ancient Greek)

θέτω (Greek)

θέω (Ancient Greek)

θέων (Ancient Greek)

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Definition of thesis noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• Students must submit a thesis on an agreed subject within four years.
• He presented this thesis for his PhD.
• a thesis for a master's degree
• He's doing a doctoral thesis on the early works of Shostakovich.
• Many departments require their students to do a thesis defense.
• She completed an MSc by thesis.
• her thesis adviser at MIT
• in a/​the thesis
• thesis about

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First Drafts

Classics@15: a concise inventory of greek etymology.

Citation:   Levaniouk, Olga, ed. 2017–. “A Concise Inventory of Greek Etymology.” Special issue, Classics@ 15. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.jissue:ClassicsAt.Issue15.A_Concise_Inventory_of_Greek_Etymologies.2017 .

A Concise Inventory of Greek Etymologies

ἐν δὲ δικαιοσύνῃ συλλήβδην πᾶσ᾿ἀρετή᾿στί

ábhūd u pārám étave pánthā r̥tásya sādhuyā́

sīṣ̌ā nā̊ aṣ̌ā paϑō   vaŋhə̄uš xvaētəṇg manaŋhō

A less well-attested exegetic tradition explains -phóntēs as a derivative of phaínō ‘to (make) appear’ (φαίνω), compare

• It is unlikely that * pháōn would contract into * phõn and appear as such in Greek hexameter poetry: * pháōn would probably have been spelled as disyllabic, maybe with diektasis , * phóōn . However, a univerbized form as * Argeïpháōn or * Argeïphóōn could have been reshaped into Argeïphóntēs to comply with the requirements of Greek hexameter.
• If a form * -phõn existed it could have reflected a new formation on * b h n̥- or p h an- , that is to say, a reshaping which took place when the vowel alternance a / o had not yet been abandoned as a synchronic regularity, as proposed by Peters (1993:104, fn. 84).

One may add that Dáeira ’s connection to ‘water’ is also reflected by her mythological pedigree. According to Pherecydes (fragment 45 Fowler) she is the sister of River Styx, while Pausanias (1.38.7) identifies her as the daughter of Okeanos. All these data provide support for Nikolaev’s (2019) etymology: Dáeira is a substantivized feminine adjective of the same type as Greek píeira , Sanskrit pī́varī ‘fat’, with a suffix * -u̯er-ih 2 entangling a possessive meaning ‘having/possessing X.’ The basis * da- of Dá-(w)eira could be connected with the same root figuring in several names of rivers or mythological/divine figures linked to the element ‘water’, such as OInd. Dānu- (name of the water serpent Vr̥tra), Scythian Tanais , Irish Danu , Welsh Don , Lithuanian Dunōjus , Latvian Duņavas , Germanic Danube , and the Greek god’s name Poseidon ( Poseidáōn ), which is commonly etymologized as ‘Lord of the Water(s)’ (maybe reflecting an univerbation of a vocative ‘O Lord of the Waters!’). To sum up: Dáeira or Daîra , daughter of the Ocean and sister of the Stynx, is to be identified as the ‘Lady of the Waters.’ Beekes, R. 2010. Etymological Dictionary of Greek . Leiden / Boston: Brill. Frisk, H. 1960. Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch . 1. Band (Α–Κ). Heidelberg: Winter. Nikolaev, A. ΔΑΕΙΡΑ, the lady of the waters. In: Nikolai Kazanski (ed.): Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology XXIII. Proceedings of the 23rd Conference in Memory of Professor Joseph M. Tronsky, June 24–26, 2019 , 790–795. Saint Petersburg: Nauka.   Laura Massetti 2021.05.03 δαίς ( dais ) A. Nagy comments on the notion of ‘division’ latent in daís and overt in the Homeric expression δαιτὸς ἐίσης ‘of an equal daís ’. “Not just for Achilles but for any Homeric character, the eating of meat at feasts is by nature a sacrificial occasion: in the words of George M. Calhoun, “every meal was a sacrifice and an act of worship, and every sacrifice a meal.” This statement may be overly one-dimensional in its view of epic action, but it remains a valid observation about the contents of Homeric narrative: feasts where meat is consumed are indeed regularly occasioned by sacrifice. The Homeric word for such occasions is daís / daítē (e.g. Odyssey 3.33/44, etc.), and both nouns are etymologically derived from the verb daíomai ‘divide, apportion, allot’. Consider the following Homeric collocation of verb and noun:

A further Daina explicitly confirms that Saule turns red during the night:

Dainas may preserve a further link between the color red and the travel of the Sun-goddess. In one folksong, attested in the Latvian regions of Vidzeme, Kurzeme and Zemgale, Saule’s vehicle on the Daugava is pulled by a red fish :

Significantly, the Latvian name of the red-fish, rauda , is an etymological congener of Erútheia , since it reflects a thematic derivative * h 1 roud h – o – ‘red’, also underlying Vedic lohá – ‘red metal’, Umbrian rofu , rofa , Gothic rauþs , Old Irish rúad ‘red.’ In conclusion: as a character, Erútheia is the red Evening goddess who helps the Sun-god Helios during his nocturnal travel. The association between the color red and an evening-goddess may reflect an Indo-European pattern, since in the Baltic tradition, the same color is associated with the nocturnal travel of the Sun. Afanas’ev, A. N. 1865. Poetičeskie vozzreniya slavyan na prirodu . Tom 1. Moskva: Izd. Soldatenkova. Massetti, L. 2019. “Antimachus’s Enigma: On Eruytheia, the Latvian Sun-goddess and a Red Fish.” The Journal of Indo-European Studies 47 1/2.223–240.   Laura Massetti 2021.04.15 Ἐρυσίχθων ( Erusíkhthōn ) Erusíkhthōn (Ἐρυσίχθων) is the name of a prince who is afflicted with such an insatiable hunger that he turns into the famine demon Aíthōn (Αἴθων, ‘Mr. Burning’), compare Hesiod fragment 43a.2–6 Merkelbach-West Ἐρυσίχθονος […] τὸν δ’ Αἴθων’ ἐκάλεσσαν ἐπ]ών[υ]μ̣[ο]ν εἵνεκα λιμοῦ || αἴθωνος κρατεροῦ ‘of Erysichthon […] him they also called Aithon] by name because of his hunger, blazing strong.’ According to Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter and Ovid’s Metamorphoses 8.728–778, Erusíkhthōn is guilty of cutting down the trees from the sacred grove of Demeter and is punished by the goddess with unrelenting appetite:

• warriors dragging off dead bodies ( nekrón , nekroús , see Iliad 5.573+) for plunder or ransom;
• dogs and birds of prey dragging corpses and tearing them apart, e.g. Iliad 11.454 οἰωνοὶ ὠμησταὶ ἐρύουσι ‘but the birds that eat raw flesh will rend (you)’;
• the violent dragging of someone by one of his/her body-parts, indicated in the genitive case, by means of a complement [ἐκ – body-part gen. ] or an equivalent adverb, see, for instance, Odyssey 22.187–188 τὼ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐπαΐξανθ᾿ ἑλέτην ἔρυσάν τέ μιν εἴσω || κουρίξ “then the two of them sprung upon and seized him. They dragged him (: Melanthios) in by the hair ”;
• the vehement extraction of an object from a surface, e.g. Iliad 16.862–863 δόρυ χάλκεον ἐξ ὠτειλῆς || εἴρυσε λὰξ προσβάς “ he drew the spear of bronze out of the wound, planting his heel (on the dead man)”
• the ripping of a plant, e.g. Odyssey 10.302–303 ὣς ἄρα φωνήσας πόρε φάρμακον Ἀργεϊφόντης || ἐκ γαίης ἐρύσας “so saying, Argeïphontes gave me the herb, pulling it out of the ground .”

Remarkably, erusíkhthōn occurs as an epithet of a plowing animal in a fragment by the comic poet Straton (4th–3rd century BCE):

Εὐρύφάεσσα ( Eurupháessa )

The interpretation of the river’s name is debated. Kretschmer (1937:207–210) proposed to connect ēri – with the term ἠρίον ( ēríon ) ‘hill’. Differently, Pokorny (1969:193–197) proposed that the name was an adapted borrowing from * Rhodanos , through an Iberic mediation * Errodanos , which was ‘Hellenized’ as Ēridanós .

According to the myth (compare, for example, [Apollodorus] Library 3.10.7), Tyndareos is Kástōr’ s father, while Zeus is Poludeúkēs ’ father. This myth may have parallels in Old Indic (Frame 2009:62–76 and Pirart 1995) As explained by Nagy (2013, 0§5), since immortality is ‘a recessive gene’ in Greek mythology, “the absolute mortality of Castor is symmetrically counterbalanced by [the] absolute immortality [of Pollux]” (Nagy 2016, with my addenda or changes between square brackets). That is, if Pollux had been the only child of Zeus and Leda, the combination of a mortal woman with an immortal god would have resulted in Pollux being a mortal. However, Kástōr and Poludeúkēs are born as twins and manage to recombine their absolute (im)mortality components. After Kástōr is killed in a fight against Idas and Lynkeus, a rival pair of twins from Messenia (compare Pindar, Nemean Ten ), Poludeúkēs makes a mystical deal with Zeus. Accordingly, both Kástōr and Poludeúkēs become half immortal and half mortal, but count as dominantly immortal as a pair. Remarkably, the cosmological visualizations of the Dioskouroi imagine them as coexisting in alternating times and places, as when they represent the Morning and the Evening Star, Lucifer and Hesperus (compare Nagy 1990:258–259, Frame 2009: 74–84). In this connection, it is significant that the cosmological dimension of the Greek Dióskouroi matches that of the Vedic and Baltic Divine Twins (Mannhardt 1857). The characteristics and myths of the Vedic Aśvins/Nāsatyas (see →  Néstōr ), the Lithuanian Diẽvo sunẽliai , and the Latvian Dieva dēli also mythologize the cosmological functions of the Morning and Evening Star, the (alternating) escorts of the Sun by day and night (compare Gotō 2009 on the Vedic twins). Indeed, within the three Indo-European traditions the Divine Twins are related or connected with Sun-deities or characters associated with the sun: the Dioskouroi are brothers of Helen, who is commonly thought to have inherited some features belonging to the Indo-European Sun-Maiden (Jackson 2006, see → Diòs thugáthēr ); the Aśvins/Nāsatyas woo or marry the Sun-Maiden Sūryā; the Baltic ‘Sons of God’ rescue the Sun-goddess Saule or are the groomsmen of the Sun-Maiden. Names and attributes of the Divine Twins in Greek, Vedic, and Baltic are also the same: the twin gods are young, splendid, and extremely mobile. They are indeed associated with ‘horses’, ‘boats’ and ‘chariots’ (compare Ginevra (forthc.) with reference to an Old Norse comparandum). The juncture ‘ Kástōr tamer of horses’ ( Kástora th’ hippódamon , see above) thus perfectly aligns with the standard traits of the Indo-European Divine Twins. From the etymological point of view, Kastōr is a – tor -agent noun built on the Indo-European root *( s ) ḱend – ‘to appear, become visible’, which, among others, underlies the Vedic root śad ‘to excel, triumph’ (García Ramón 1992). Significantly, Vedic śad , which mostly applies to the Dawn goddess Uṣas in the Rigveda , is once referred to the Divine Twins and their ‘swift (horses)’ (Pirart 1995: 160–161): In Rigveda 1.116, a hymn to the Aśvins enumerating their many achievements, the gods are said to have been exulting ( śā́śadānā ) thanks to their swift-speeding animals, compare

• the Sabellic adjective cyprum , glossed as bonum ‘good’ by Varro, which lived on in the divine appellative cupra dea (i.e. bona dea ‘Good Goddess’), and in the Italian toponym Cupra Marittima ;
• the South Picenian adverb < kuprí > (AQ 2, Capestrano) ‘beautifully’ (as a last reference, see Martzloff 2011:196);
• the Old Irish compound accobor (reflecting *ad-kŭpro- ) ‘desire’, related to the verb ad·cobra ‘he wishes, desires’;
• the Lycian verb kupri – ‘to want’ (Serangeli: forthcoming), whose denominative formation matches the structure of the Old Irish verb.

This set of forms speaks for the existence of a ró -adjective, *kupró- ‘desirable’, which was substantivized into *kupri – ‘desire’ through the morpheme – i -. Kúpris is therefore the personification of ‘Desire’.

The term has been interpreted as / māi gāi / ‘for mother earth’ by Ruijgh (1996) and as a dative / magāi / ‘for the kneading’ by Palaima (2000–2001). Both these interpretations are problematic: / māi gāi / ‘for mother earth’ is linguistically defendable, but incompatible with the context of the Thebes tablet Fq 254; / magāi / ‘for the kneading’ is linguistically difficult since it does not match its alleged alphabetical Greek correspondent máza (μάζα, from * mag i̯a -). It is more likely that Mycenean ma-ka conceals / Margāi / ‘for Margas’, the dative of a personal name, or/ margāi /, dative of a feminine form margā -. Since ma-ka parallels de-qo-no / deik w no- /, alphabetical Greek deípnon ‘banquet’ in the tablet, and it is allotted a large amount of barley, the possible meaning of the noun may be ‘repast’ or ‘large repast’. Both Mycenean ma-ka and Greek márgos can be traced back to the Indo-European root * merg- ‘to divide, cut’, which underlies the Hittite verb mark- / mark- ḫḫif ‘to separate, butcher’ as well as several words for ‘border(land)’, such as, among others, Young Avestan marəza- ‘borderland’, Latin margo , marginis ‘boundary’, Old Norse mǫrk – ‘forest, (border)land’ and Old Irish mruig ‘borderland’. As for Greek márgos and Mycenean ma-ka , they could reflect a syllabification marg- of the zero-grade (instead of the expected outcome * brag -), which could be explained as secondary and analogical to that of the full-grade * morg – or * merg -. This kind of syllabification is just like the one seen in the Mycenean and Greek congeners of the Indo-European root * kerp – ‘to seize’, Mycenean ka-po / karpos /, Alphabetical Greek karpós (καρπός) ‘fruit’. Both the -o-full-grade morg – and the -e-full-grade merg – are attested in Greek glosses:

More specifically, since Greek names in -eús usually pair with names in -o- , just as in the case of h ippeús ‘horseman’ and h íppos ‘horse’ (Schindler 1976), a name Pro-mētheús might have paired with a form reconstructable as *pro-māthó- a derivative with lengthened a- grade to the root *math 2 – ‘to rob’ (see Oettinger 2016), underlying the Sanskrit term pramātha – ‘theft’. The very same root may underlie the name of another Old Indic fire-thief. As firstly suggested by Fay (1904:155), in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa (1.4.1.10-21), Agni is said to have been carried in the mouth of King Māthava , who accidentally let him flash out in pronouncing the word for ‘ghee.’ The name Māthava , who acts as a ‘fire-concealer’ in the Vedic episode, could be a further Old Indic congener of Greek Promētheús (Gotō 2000:110, 2014:241).

Nagy argues that in this passage ἐπιβρίσαις / epibrísais , derived from the verb epi-brī́thō ‘weigh heavily’, hints at húbris , since “this verb is semantically parallel to the noun húbris , the etymology of which is recapitulated in these quoted words of Pindar concerning material prosperity, ólbos , described as coming down with its full weight upon its owner.”

The sentiment of these Hesiodic lines is nearly equivalent to that expressed in Pindar’s Pythian 3.105–106, discussed by Nagy and quoted at the beginning of this entry (Nagy 1994:280–281). In both cases, the mortal is unable to bear the weight that falls upon him. In Hesiod, this weight is explicitly húbris . In Pindar, the weight is that of excessive prosperity, ólbos , but, as Nagy, suggests, a hint at húbris is contained in the participle ἐπιβρίσαις / epibrísais (derived from epi-brī́thō ‘weigh heavily’), which recapitulates the etymology of húbris (the prefix epi – (ἐπί) corresponds to hu- (ὑ-) and is followed, as in húbris , by the stem bri- ).

The parallel between barking dogs and sentinels is also found in Plato: In the Republic (375a, 375e), Plato explicitly compares the sentinels of the ideal state, phúlakes , to young dogs ( skúlakes , kúnes ). Finally, it is significant that Delphic hero Phúlakos is connected to the idea of great clamor of war. Herodotus (8.37.3) tells us that when the Persians were attacking the temple of Athena Pronaia at Delphi (480BCE) two rocks broke off from Parnassus and came rushing [[crushing?]] among them, while ‘a shout and a cry of triumph’ (βοή τε καὶ ἀλαλαγμός) came from the temple. According to the survivors, however, two local heroes, Phúlakos and Autónoos , had pursued the barbarians. The clamor heard from the temple could thus be connected with the alarm given by Phúlakos and Autónoos , the sentinels par excellence . In conclusion, Greek phúlax (and Phúlakos ) can be rightly identified as the ‘the one who gives the alarm.’ The phraseological analysis supports the etymological connection between Greek phúlax and the Indo-European root * b h elH – ‘to utter a sound.’ Kölligan, D. 2016. “Trois noms grecs en -ak-: πῖδαξ, λῦμαξ, φύλαξ.” In: A. Blanc, and D. Petit (eds.): Nouveaux acquis sur la formation des noms en grec ancien : actes du colloque international, Université de Rouen, ERIAC, 17-18 octobre 2013 , 117–133. Louvain: Peeters. Vine, B. 1999. “On ‘Cowgill’s Law’ in Greek.” In H. Eichner, H. C. Luschützky (eds.): Compositiones Indogermanicae in Memoriam Jochem Schindler , 555-600. Praha: Enigma.   Laura Massetti 2021.04.18 Χείρων, Χίρων, Χέρρων ( Kheirōn ) Chiron, the son of the nymph Philyra and of Cronus (Pherecydes fr. 2.3 M), is described in the epics as ‘the most righteous among the Centaurs’ (δικαιότατος Κενταύρων, Iliad 11.832) and as ‘having friendly thoughts’ (φίλα φρονέων, Iliad 4.219). His name is attested in three variants: Kheirōn (Χείρων) is the most recurrent in the literary sources (from Homer onward, with a few exceptions, such as Pindar, Euripides fr. 14.13 P, Acusilaus fr. 16.2 DK); Khīrōn (Χίρων) is often attested in the documentary sources (for example, Attic vase paintings of the fifth century BCE and one inscription from Thera in the sixth century BCE); Kherrōn (Χέρρων) occurs only in Alcaeus (fr. 42.9 V). If Kheirōn (Χείρων) is the original form, the name may be related to Greek kheir (χείρ) ‘hand’ (Kretschmer 1919:58–62), meaning ‘the one who has a special hand’. The form Kherrōn (Χέρρων), if genuine and not the result of a secondary ‘aeolicization’, supports this assumption (compare χέρρες ‘hands’ Sappho fr. 90[1].2 V). If Khīrōn is the primary form, the etymology is unclear. In this scenario, the forms Kheirōn and Kherrōn should both be explained as secondary formations under the influence of folk etymologies linking Chiron’s name to kheir ‘hand’ (Wachter 2001:263–264). Without any doubt, ancient literary sources connected Chiron with the ‘healing hand’ and the ‘healing practice’ ( kheirourgiā ). Indeed, Chiron mentors a number of young heroes connected with both hunting and healing, such as Jason, Aristaeus, Asclepius, and Achilles. Specifically, Pindar says that Chiron ‘taught’ his students ‘the gentle-handed province of medicines’ (Χίρων … τὸν φαρμάκων δίδαξε μαλακόχειρα νόμον, Pindar Nemean 3.53–55). Additionally, the name of Jason (Ἰάσων), one of Chiron’s pupils, actually means ‘healer’ (compare Greek ἰάομαι ‘to treat’, ἰατήρ ‘physician’). Chiron’s distinctive features are comparable to those of other divine figures who have a healing ‘hand’ (Greek kheir , Vedic hástaḥ , Hittite keššar , from the common Indo-European root *ghes -, enlarged with different suffixes) in other Indo-European traditions, namely the Vedic god Rudra, who has a ‘merciful’ ( mr̥ḷayā́kuḥ , R̥gveda 2.33.7) or ‘healing hand’ ( bheṣajaḥ … hástaḥ , R̥gveda 2.33.7), and the Hittite ‘Sun-god of the hand’ (Hittite kiššeraš D UTU-uš ) invoked in the ritual of the Catalogue des Textes Hittites 402. The three figures share an association with the activity and equipment of the hunt, that is, of the bow, arrows, and hounds. In the epics, Chiron, who is an experienced hunter, is mentioned in connection with remedies applied to arrow wounds ( Iliad 4.217–219); however, he is killed by one of Heracles’ arrows (Diodorus Siculus Library 4.12.8, Hyginus Astronomica 2.38.1). Afterwards, he is transformed either into the constellation Sagittarius (‘the arrow shooter’ Lucan Pharsalia 6.393–394) or into the constellation Centaurus (Hyginus Astronomica 2.38.1). The Vedic god Rudra controls remedies while also causing diseases and death with his arrows. He is the god ‘who possesses good arrow’ ( s u viṣúḥ , R̥gveda 5.42.11) and ‘good bow’ ( sudhánvā , R̥gveda 5.42.11), but he is also ‘men-smiting’ ( nr̥hán- , R̥gveda 4.3.6). Additionally, he protects hounds, masters of hounds, and hunters ( Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 16.27–28). In the Hittite Ritual of Allī against Bewitching ( Catalogue des Textes Hittites 402), the Hittite kiššeraš D UTU-uš (‘Sun-god of the hand’) is opposed to a hunter clay-figure, who has hounds, arrows, and a bow. In the ritual, the hunter and his arrows represent, like Rudra’s arrows, what the ‘Sun-god of the hand’ has to remove (Mouton 2010). Chiron and Rudra have further traits in common. They are compared to or called ‘wild beasts’ (Greek φήρ; Vedic mr̥gáṃ ná bhīmám ‘like a fearful beast’, R̥gveda 2.33.11). Furthermore, they are inhabitants of mountains par excellence . Chiron dwells on Mount Pelion in Thessaly (Χείρων ἵν’ οἰκεῖ σεμνὰ Πηλίου βάθρα ‘where Chiron lives, the holy glens of Pelion’ Euripides Iphigenia at Aulis 705), and, like other Centaurs, he is a ‘mountain dweller’ (Greek oreiskōios , of all the Centaurs, Iliad 1.268). Likewise, Rudra is called ‘mountain dweller’ ( giriśayá -, Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 16.29). Finally, Chiron and Rudra are connected with young warriors: Chiron rears several young heroes and is a wise friend of heroes and gods. He bestows upon Peleus his ‘ash spear for the smiting of men’ (μελίην φόνον ἔμμεναι ἡρώεσσιν, Iliad 16.143, 19.390), suggests that he take Thetis as his bride by force ([Apollodorus] Library 3.168), and predicts to Apollo that he will carry away the nymph Cyrene after their consensual union (Pindar Pythian 9). In the R̥gveda , Rudra is the ‘father of the Maruts’ ( pitar marutām , R̥gveda 2.33.1), a group of atmospheric deities portrayed as young warriors and young bride wooers, which vaguely recalls Chiron’s role with regard to young and unmarried heroes. In conclusion, the folk etymological association between Chiron’s name and the ‘healing hand’ might itself be based on a set of associations shared by Greek and two cognate languages, Vedic and Anatolian. Here, (semi-)divine figures dwelling in wild and liminal realms are connected to young age groups, hunting activity, and the healing of arrow wounds, which frequently occur on the occasion of hunting incidents and group fights. Therefore, Chiron, the Greek ‘Mr. (Healing) Hand’, might be interpreted as a continuation of a more ancient ‘Mr. (Healing) Hand’. Kretschmer, P. 1919. “Mythische Namen.” Glotta 10: 38–62. Massetti, L. In preparation. “Mr. Hand: On Gk. Χείρων, Rudrá – ‘of healing hand’ and Hitt. kiššeraš D UTU-uš .” Mouton, A. 2010. Rituel d’Allī d’Arzawa (CTH 402) . http://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/txhet_besrit/intro.php?xst=CTH%20402&prgr=&lg=FR&ed=A.%20Mouton . Wachter, R. 2001. Non-Attic Greek Vase Inscriptions . Oxford.   Laura Massetti 2018.05.29 Ὠκεανός ( Ōkeanós ) Ōkeanós , often translated as ‘Ocean’, is the name of a cosmic potamós ‘river’ ( Iliad 18.607, Odyssey 11.639) of Ancient Greek mythology, from whom all rivers and streams are said to flow ( Iliad 21.195-197). A Titan son of Gaia ‘Earth’ and Ouranos ‘Sky’, according to Hesiod ( Theogony 337) Okeanos was the father of all deified Potamoí ‘Rivers’ (on which see further Potamós ), whom he begot together with the female Titan Tethys (on which see further Tēthū́s ), his sister and spouse. The following are some of Okeanos’s earliest features in epic diction (as summarized in Nagy 1990:236-239) that are most relevant here: he marks the boundaries of Earth ( Iliad 14.301-302); the Sun rises from him ( Iliad 7.421-423; Odyssey 19.433-434) and falls into him at sunset ( Iliad 8.485); correspondingly, Okeanos must surround the Earth, as also shown by the fact that the scenes of everyday life on the Shield of Achilles are framed as a whole by a depiction of Okeanos along the shield’s rim ( Iliad 18.607-608). As pointed out by Nagy (1990:237), several of Okeanos’s features have correspondences in those of his and Tethys’s son Eridanos, on which see Ēridanós. An Indo-European etymology for Ōkeanós is considered unlikely by Robert Beekes (2010:1677, s.v. Ὠκεανός), who states that “since the idea of a world river is not of IE origin, the word must be a loan”, and traces it back to “a Pre-Greek form * ūkān ”: however, on the one hand, the latter reconstruction finds no parallels in any ancient or modern languages known to us; on the other hand, the belief that a generic body of water encircles the entire Earth may well be of Indo-Europeanm origin, as it is actually attested not only in the earliest Greek tradition (as argued by Nagy), but also (at least) in the Indic and Germanic ones (cf., e.g., West 2007:349 —who is, however, skeptical). Indeed, the role of Okeanos as “encircler of the Earth” has led Michael Janda (2005:231ff; 2010:57ff) to argue in favor of an IE etymology for Ancient Greek Ōkeanós that had been first formulated explicitly by Adalbert Kuhn (1860:240; building on previous proposals by Theodor Benfey and Adolphe Pictet—see Janda 2005:231-233 for a summary), namely as the reflex of an inherited formation * ō-ḱei̯m̥h 1 no – ‘lying (up)on, near’, a middle participle stem of the verbal root * ḱei̯- ‘to lie, to be lying’ (Ancient Greek keî-mai ‘lie’, Vedic Sanskrit śáy-e ‘lie’) prefixed with the particle * ō- ‘(upo)on, near’ (Vedic preverb ā́- ‘near, near to, towards’), whose Vedic Sanskrit reflex ā-śáyāna- ‘lying (up)on, near’ is indeed attested several times with the serpent Vr̥tra ( vr̥trá- ) as referent and a term for body of water as location, either in the locative case (as sirā́su ‘in/on the streams’) or in the accusative case (as síndhum ‘towards the river’ and apá ‘towards the waters’):

índro mahā́ṁ síndhum āśáyānam / māyāvínaṁ vr̥trám asphuran níḥ

áhim ohānám apá āśáyānam / prá māyā́bhir māyínaṁ sakṣad índraḥ

smerdaléon dè dédorken elissómenos perì khei ē̂

śeṣo ‘si nāgottama dharmadevo mahīm imāṃ dhārayase yad ekaḥ / anantabhogaḥ parigṛhya sarvāṃ yathāham evaṃ balabhid yathā vā

catuḥsamudraparyantāṃ merumandarabhūṣaṇām / śeṣo bhūtvāham evaitāṃ dhārayāmi vasuṃdharām

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Practice Words from Greek and Latin Roots

Most English academic (and test) vocabulary has Greek and Latin roots. If you can recognize a fairly small number of those roots and the English words made from them, you will have a great advantage in both reading and taking tests in English.

Greek and Latin Roots in EnglishHints.com

There are explanations and practice for over 80 Latin and over 20 Greek roots on various pages in EnglishHints.com. If you are looking for the English words that come from a specific Latin or Greek root, check the Greek and Latin Root Words index page . It will tell you which pages have more information or practice for that root. It also gives hints on how to remove prefixes and suffixes from an unknown English word to see if you can recognize its root.

The practice on this page involves words from just two other pages besides the words explained below. This page  continues the discussion of Greek and Latin roots in  Vocabulary from Classical Roots , as well as providing a  gap-fill exercise  to practice the words from both pages. You can try the exercise first, or read the explanations below and those on the classical roots page before you test yourself. 

The classical roots page discusses the meanings of words like analogy, analysis, ideology, philosopher, and theory that come from Greek roots. Greek Roots  gives many more words including scope and thesis.

Vocabulary from Classical Roots also talks about a number of words from Latin roots : ambiguous, assume, consume, presume, classical, dominate/dominion, military and civilian, norm, abnormal, enormous, and successor/successive.

I moved the rest of the Latin-root vocabulary to this page (below) to keep the classical roots page from being impossibly long after adding a matching quiz.

More Vocabulary from Latin Roots

from sistere -- to stand

These four words and their derivatives (family members) are from  sistere-  to stand or stand still. Assistance is help-- someone ‘standing beside you.’ Consistent means to be the same every time-- reliable. Persistence is steadily continuing to do what needs doing. It means not giving up easily. To resist is stand up against something. We treat wood with preservatives so it will be resistant to decay and will last longer. Many people think chocolate is irresistible-- they cannot (don't want to) fight their desire for it.

from centrum -- center

Concentration (from  com+ centrum -- center) can be an intense focusing of the mind on one thing. It also has a second meaning: a high density of something. (For example, many people believe there is an over-concentration of politicians in Washington, D.C.) We also speak of juice concentrates, which are denser because some of the water has been removed.

Other words derived from centrum are center, central, centralization and decentralization, concentric (two or more circles with a common center), geocentric (earth-centered) and eccentric. (These words are not on the Academic Word List, but are still worth learning.)  Center is a very common noun in English, but it can also be used as a verb meaning to put in the center: “You should center the title at the top of your essay.”

Someone who is eccentric is out of the center of things—odd or unusual in the way they think or do things, but not too far out or in a really negative way. We call someone’s funny habits  ‘eccentricities.’ If we dislike the person and don’t find their habits funny, we might call them ‘strange,’ ‘weird,’ or ‘abnormal,’ instead.

from mergere- - to dip in water 

To emerge is to rise or come out into the open. It comes from e x - out of +  mergere-  to dip in water (as in ‘immerse’- to cover with water) or to sink (like the English ‘submerge’). It’s used in expressions like “emerging from a recession.”

from physica -- study of nature

Physical comes from  physica- the  study of nature+ al-  related to or about. It is often used about things that can be seen or touched-- material things-- as compared to mental or spiritual things.

from rationalis- - reason

We use rational to talk about something that’s reasonable and sensible-- close to the original Latin rationalis - related to reason .  A rationalization, on the other hand, is an excuse we make that we hope will appear reasonable.

Gap-fill: Some Greek Roots of Western Thought

Use these words (all from Greek or Latin roots) to fill in the gaps or blanks of this essay:

ambiguous, concentrate, consistently, domination, dominion, emergence, ideologies, norms, philosophy, physical, persistent, rational, scope, theoretical, theory, theses (plural of thesis). 

For meanings of the words tested here that are not explained above, see Greek Roots, Vocabulary from Classical Roots, and A Classical Roots Crossword  and its Answers .

(You can also right-click here to download the pdf quiz version of the gap-fill exercise, as well as the opposites matching exercise from the classical roots page.)

If you're interested in teaching roots, check out the inexpensive lessons and practice activities on  Root, Prefix, and Suffix Worksheets .

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Greek and Latin Roots: Part I - Latin

Peter Smith, University of Victoria

Copyright Year: 2016

Publisher: BCcampus

Language: English

Formats Available

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Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Kirsten Day, Associate Professor of Classics, Augustana College on 11/14/18

Smith provides an impressively thorough overview of the many ways Latin has made an imprint on the English language. In doing so, he includes the grammatical principles of Latin that are essential to understanding how a knowledge of Latin roots,... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

Smith provides an impressively thorough overview of the many ways Latin has made an imprint on the English language. In doing so, he includes the grammatical principles of Latin that are essential to understanding how a knowledge of Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes can greatly enhance one’s fluency in English, but leaves out the aspects of the language that are extraneous in this context. This book will give native English speakers enhanced appreciation for the vocabulary they use everyday, while providing them the tools necessary to analyze and understand a vast number of words with which they are unfamiliar. Sections on the historical development of the English language are useful in understanding how language is transferred and transformed. Diligent students will undoubtedly complete this text with a much richer appreciation for their own language, as well as some basic understanding of the grammar and vocabulary of Latin. In light of the book’s title, however, I did expect to find more specific focus on specialized roots used in scientific terminology. In large part, this text seemed more appropriate to an English linguistics course than to one primarily catering to students in either the sciences or the social sciences. The book provides appendices at the back with answers to the exercises and vocabulary charts, but no index or glossary.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I did not see any errors in subject matter, and very few typographical or proofreading errors (the few I did notice include “ADN” for “AND” in §26 (p. 70); a space in the first bullet point of the second box in §38 (p. 96) that results in an awkward comma at the beginning of a line; in §78 (p. 188), “armée” is rendered “arme!e”; and §87 (p. 212) note 3 refers to §74 number 4, while the bullet points in this section are not numbered). Overall, however, this is a well-edited and polished text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The overall subject of this text is timeless and will be useful indefinitely, and for the most part, the author has done a good job in keeping his discussion of word development up to the moment. There are a few references, however, that will make this 2016 text seem dated to today’s students: in §31 (p. 77), “Present-Day English” is described as referring to the 19th and 20th centuries (despite the fact that many of today’s students were not even born until the 21st century); references to Ben Cartwright’s ranch (§42, p. 105) or to Perry Mason (§65, p. 155) will likely be lost entirely upon most students, as too might an excerpt from the Pirates of Penzance (§93, p. 223); while most students will not have heard of actor Lee Marvin (§49, p. 123), the reference might be considered more relevant (though it might need Googling).

Clarity rating: 4

Most explanations are clear and accessible to those who have no Greek or Latin (and indeed, few assumptions are made about students’ familiarity with English grammatical terms). For me, the explanation of the Latin pronunciation of vowels in §7 (pp. 17-18) might be cleaned up a bit (that E = “English” is not necessarily to be taken for granted when vowel sounds are being discussed). Some other of the abbreviations that are used in giving the shorthand of etymologies are not explained (like the E); these usually can be figured out, but a key would be nice (modF = modern French: see §23, p. 63).

Consistency rating: 5

Smith’s book impressed me with its consistency in treatment and comprehensiveness across sections.

Modularity rating: 5

This text seems very useful in terms of modularity. The reading sections are short, and would allow an instructor much flexibility in terms of how much to assign in each class. While concepts necessarily build on one another, links within each section lead students to appropriate places to fill in or review the concepts that have been covered previously. In addition, there are some sections that might be regarded as supplemental and thereby excluded, depending on the needs of the course and time constraints.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

While I understand the reasons behind dedicating the first volume to Latin (accessibility/familiarity, volume of material) and the second to Greek, this seems an odd choice to me in terms of chronology. Within the volume itself, the organizational logic and breakdowns of section are usually clear and logical. I did have a few quibbles within chapters: for example, on the first set of exercises, it would be useful to reiterate the numbering scheme rather than referring back to a chart much earlier in the text (§17, p. 45 #3). And while Smith’s exhaustive list of examples of words for analysis or consideration is useful, it might be a bit overwhelming in its presentation for many students (i.e. §83, p. 200).

Interface rating: 4

The online version is fairly easy to navigate, but the sections are fairly short: this results in a lot of clicking, but is useful in other ways. The downloadable PDF has a lot of blank pages. §19 (p. 53) has a spacing issue within a paragraph, which also appears in the online version. In both cases, there seem to be some reference errors: for instance, we are told to “consult the Bestiary” in §41 (p. 94), but this should read §42.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The breadth and depth of Dr. Smith’s language expertise is impressive. I did not find any grammatical errors in this text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

There are potentially minor slights to Smith’s fellow Canadians in §18 (p. 51) n. 1, and a comment that seems to equate “ardent feminists” with man-haters who are unable to set aside their biases to study language as objectively as male linguists in §42 (p. 105) might best be omitted. And although minor, making light of terms associated with abortion as a political issue (p. 225) also might sit badly with some in today’s divisive political climate.

The text will provide students far more information about the history of English, its relationship to Latin (and other languages), and about the grammar of Latin than many other texts on this subject. In places, I would like to see citations for references (i.e., the references to Juvenal on p. 71 and to Plautus in n. 1 in §56 (p. 137). There are many interesting cultural tidbits (such as the relationship of the political term “fascist” to the Roman fasces (§56, p. 137). Occasionally, the text offers a tease, which in some cases can prompt to further study (the etymology of “vanilla” might make you blush: again, §56, p. 137), but in other cases seems just to assume too much (as with the above noted reference to Lee Marvin and the origin of the word “palimony”). Overall, I think this text is highly useful for a course on English linguistics, but less useful as a stand alone text for a course that focuses on equipping those in the sciences and social sciences with an arsenal of word roots pertinent to their field (though as a supplemental text, for this sort of course, I think it could be very useful indeed).

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Latin Noun (Declensions 1 & 2)
• Chapter 3: The Latin Noun (Declensions 3, 4, 5)
• Chapter 4: Simple Latin Adjectives
• Chapter 5: Turning Latin Nouns into Adjectives
• Chapter 6: Turning Latin Adjectives into Latin Nouns
• Chapter 7: Latin Diminutives
• Chapter 8: Latin Prefixes
• Chapter 9: The Latin Verb System
• Chapter 10: Turning Latin Verbs into Latin Nouns
• Chapter 11: Turning Latin Nouns into Latin Verbs
• Chapter 12: Latin Present Participles and Gerundives
• Chapter 13: Turning Latin Verbs into Latin Adjectives
• Chapter 14: Compound Words in Latin
• I. Key to Exercises (Latin)
• Key to Exercises (Latin)
• II. Summary of Vocabulary Tables (Latin)
• Appendix II
• Summary of Vocabulary Tables (Latin)

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Greek and Latin Roots: Part I - Latin is part one of a two part series. This series examines the systematic principles by which a large portion of English vocabulary has evolved from Latin and (to a lesser degree) from Greek. This book focuses on Latin roots. A link to the second part focusing on the Greek roots can be found below. Part I will try to impart some skill in the recognition and proper use of words derived from Latin. There is a stress on principles: although students will be continually looking at interesting individual words, their constant aim will be to discover predictable general patterns of historical development, so that they may be able to cope with new and unfamiliar words of any type that they have studied. They will be shown how to approach the problem by a procedure known as “word analysis,” which is roughly comparable to the dissection of an interesting specimen in the biology laboratory. The text assumes no previous knowledge of Latin, and does not involve the grammatical study of this language—except for a few basic features of noun and verb formation that will help students to understand the Latin legacy in English. Although there will be some attention paid to the historical interaction of Latin with English, this text is definitely not a systematic history of the English language. It focuses on only those elements within English that have been directly or indirectly affected by this classical language. In order to provide the broadest possible service to students, the text emphasizes standard English vocabulary in current use. The more exotic technical vocabulary of science and medicine can be extremely interesting, but is explored in only summary fashion. Nevertheless, this text should be of considerable value, say, to a would-be botanist or medical doctor, if only by providing the foundation for further specialized enquiry.

About the Contributors

Peter Smith (1933 – 2006) was founding Chair of the Classics Department (now named Greek and Roman Studies) and later served as Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, both at the University of Victoria.

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Chapter 22: Greek Verbs and their Derivatives

§135. A Sampling of Greek Verb Roots

To illustrate our approach, let us take five different Greek verbs and show how a knowledge of their roots alone will help us understand a lot of English vocabulary. The present infinitive forms will also be listed, if only to prove that they are really irrelevant to English. Much more importantly, you’ll be given a few simple rules for creating Greek nouns and adjectives from verb roots. Though you will not gain any grammatical insight into the Greek verb, you will emerge from this short experiment with the basic equipment that you need to cope with Greek verb derivatives in English.

As always, the root is the minimal element of meaning. Though θε- and δο- could not stand alone in Greek speech, they were the sounds that made the Greek ear register the idea of “placing” and “giving,” respectively. The infinitives τιθεναι and διδοναι are examples of actual words formed from verb roots—you can see the two roots at their heart. One may well ask, however, whether there is any point in learning these complicated Greek forms (unless it is to recognize them when they occur in major English dictionaries). From our examples above, it would appear that the Greek present infinitive may end either in -ναι or in -ειν. Greek τιθεναι is the equivalent, in form and meaning, of Latin ponere , whereas Greek διδοναι corresponds with Latin dare . (The roots δο- and da- are cognate.)

We’ll completely ignore the question, “How did the Greeks use these roots to express verbal concepts?” Instead, let’s ask, “How did the Greeks form other parts of speech in which these verb roots have affected English?” Here is one answer. It was common practice in Greek to add the suffix -σις (- sis ) to a verb root in order to create an abstract noun. Therefore Greek had a noun θεσις ( the-sis ) that meant “a placing.” We may compare it with its Latin parallel from ponere , the abstract noun positio ( posit-io ). Although they are not really synonyms, thesis and position —English words with the same etymological meaning—do have some semantic relationship. The Greek form may be adapted in English: δοσις ( do-sis ), “a giving,” is the etymon of English dose .

If θεσις means “a placing,” then συνθεσις ( syn-thesis ) is “a placing together,” ἀντιθεσις ( anti-thesis ) is “a placing against,” and ὑποθεσις ( hypo-thesis ) is “a placing beneath.” Would you agree that the Greek derivatives synthesis and hypothesis have semantic links with the parallel Latin derivatives composition and supposition ? A metathesis is a “change” (μετα-) in placement—for instance, a transposition of two letters of the aplhabet—oops, I meant alphabet. A prosthesis (cf. §133 ) is something “placed in addition” (προσ-), like an artificial limb. We see two Greek prefixes at work in the noun παρενθεσις ( par-en-thesis ), a device for placing something in and beside.

Moving down our experimental list of verb roots, we can assume that the same noun suffix will be added to στα- to produce στασις, “a standing”; and we may be familiar with the English word stasis (used, for instance, of a fluid stoppage in human physiology). More interesting, perhaps, is ἐκστασις ( ek-stasis ), source of the English word ecstasy . In Greek mystery religions, you achieved the state of ecstasy when you had the feeling that you were “standing outside” your body, thus allowing the god to come inside (ἐνθυσιασμος, E enthusiasm ). The medical term μεταστασις ( meta-stasis ) describes the “change of standing” when a cancer moves from one part of the body to another.

From the verb root κρι- ( kri- , “divide,” “judge”) there is only one noun of this type—κρισις; a crisis is a moment of division or judgement. (Note also criterion < κριτηριον). However, from the verb root λυ- ( ly- , “loosen”) we have a bonanza of English noun derivatives (all pure Greek): analysis, catalysis, paralysis, dialysis, and psychoanalysis. Several of these were discussed in the last chapter, but now you will be better equipped to understand their form. If the Latin translation of λυειν (“to loosen”) is solvere , then an analysis is perhaps equivalent to a resolution ( resolutio ).

Before we leave our trial group of verb roots, let us become acquainted with two other Greek suffixes used in verb derivatives.

Whereas the suffix -sis was added to verbs to form abstract nouns, the suffix -ma ( -ma ) was similarly used to create concrete nouns. The only example apparent in our trial group is θεμα ( the-ma ), source of English theme . There are some other verbal derivatives of this type that have entered English without change: drama (< δρα-, “do”), dogma (< δοκ-, “think”), and cinema (κινη-, “move”). Others have been adapted in spelling, like poem (< ποιν-, “make”; cf. ποιν-της > L poeta , “maker”).

Finally, you should meet the suffix -τικος ( -tikos ), which will turn a Greek verb root (or base) into an adjective. Don’t confuse it with the suffix -ικος ( -ikos ), which converts a Greek noun base into an adjective. From our list of sample verbs, we can at once spot English words like synthetic (συνθετικος, syn-the-tikos ), hypothetical (ὑποθετικος, hyp-o-the-tikos + L -alis ), critic (κριτικος, cri-tikos ), static (στατικος, sta-tikos ), ecstatic (ἐκστατικος, ek-sta-tikos ), analytic (ἀναλυτικος, ana-ly-tikos ), catalytic (καταλυτικος, kata-ly-tikos ), and paralytic (παραλυτικος, para-ly-tikos ).

With this theoretical and practical [1] knowledge at our disposal, we can now survey a number of common Greek roots, trying out each of these suffixes in turn.

• E theoretical < θεωρη-, "observe," "speculate"; practical < πραγ-, "do," the source also of pragmatic . ↵

Greek and Latin Roots: Part II - Greek Copyright © 2016 by Peter Smith (Estate) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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hypothesis (n.)

1590s, "a particular statement;" 1650s, "a proposition, assumed and taken for granted, used as a premise," from French hypothese and directly from Late Latin hypothesis , from Greek hypothesis "base, groundwork, foundation," hence in extended use "basis of an argument, supposition," literally "a placing under," from hypo- "under" (see hypo- ) + thesis "a placing, proposition" (from reduplicated form of PIE root *dhe- "to set, put"). A term in logic; narrower scientific sense is from 1640s.

Entries linking to hypothesis

1530s, "action, a thing performed, anything done, a deed," good or evil but in 16c.-17c. commonly "evil deed, crime;" from Latin factum "an event, occurrence, deed, achievement," in Medieval Latin also "state, condition, circumstance" (source also of Old French fait , Spanish hecho , Italian fatto ), etymologically "a thing done," noun use of neuter of factus , past participle of facere "to do" (from PIE root *dhe- "to set, put").

An earlier adaptation of the Old French word that also became feat . The older senses are mostly obsolete but somewhat preserved in such phrases as after the fact , originally legal, "after the crime." Also compare matter-of-fact .

The modern, empirical, sense of "thing known to be true, a real state of things, what has really occurred or is actually the case," as distinguished from statement or belief , is from 1630s, from the notion of "something that has actually occurred." The particular concept of the scientific, empirical fact ("a truth known by observation or authentic testimony") emerged in English 1660s, via Hooke, Boyle, etc., in The Royal Society, as part of the creation of the modern vocabulary of knowledge (along with theory , hypothesis , etc.); in early 18c. it was associated with the philosophical writings of Hume. Middle English thus lacked the noun and the idea of it; the closest expression being perhaps thing proved (c.1500).

Hence facts "real state of things;" in fact "in reality" (1707). By 1729, fact was being used of "something presented as a fact but which might be or is false."

By fact is also often meant a true statement, a truth, or truth in general ; but this seems to be a mere inexactness of language .... Fact , as being special, is sometimes opposed to truth , as being universal ; and in such cases there is an implication that facts are minute matters ascertained by research, and often inferior in their importance for the formation of general opinions, or for the general description of phenomena, to other matters which are of familiar experience. [Century Dictionary]

Facts of life is by 1854 as "the stark realities of existence;" by 1913 it had also acquired a more specific sense of "knowledge of human sexual functions." The alliterative pairing of facts and figures for "precise information" is by 1727.

Facts and Figures are the most stubborn Evidences; they neither yield to the most persuasive Eloquence, nor bend to the most imperious Authority. [Abel Boyer, "The Political State of Great Britain," 1727]

plural of hypothesis .

hypothesize

hypothetical

• supposition
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Dictionary entries near hypothesis

hypothalamus

hypothecate

hypothermia

hypothesise

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the-; them-, themat-, thes-, thet-

(latin: placing, setting; to place, to put).

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