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Search results for alpha,5 in Adler number:
Headword:
*)/aaptos
Adler number: alpha,5
Translated headword: irresistable, invulnerable
Vetting Status: high
Translation: [Meaning someone/something] unharmed.
Herodianus[1] says about
a)/aptos that it comes from
i)a/ptw ['I harm'], and after adding alpha-privative and dropping the 'i' [it becomes]
a)/aptos, "whom no one can harm." Or perhaps the 'a' is not to be taken as negative but as intensifying, so it would be "one who has great power to harm." Thus the first has a passive sense, the second an active. With the negative prefix it also means "one who is untouched."[2]
*)/aaptos: a)blabh/s. *(hrwdiano/s fhsi peri\ tou= a)/aptos, o(/ti gi/gnetai a)po\ tou= i)a/ptw to\ bla/ptw, kai\ meta\ tou= sterhtikou= a kai\ kat' e)/lleiyin tou= i a)/aptos, o(\n ou)dei\s du/natai bla/yai. h)\ ou)xi\ kata\ ste/rhsin e)klhpte/on to\ a, a)lla\ kat' e)pi/tasin, i(/n' h)=| o( mega/la duna/menos bla/ptein. w(/ste to\ me\n prw=ton dhloi= pa/qos, to\ de\ deu/teron e)ne/rgeian. le/getai de\ kai\ a)/aptos kata\ ste/rhsin o( a)/yaustos.
Notes:
This form of the headword, the nominative singular masculine/feminine, is unattested outside lexicography; however, plural forms occur frequently in hexameter poetry, in the formula
xei=res a)/aptoi or
xei=ras a)a/ptous (usually interpreted as 'irresistable hands'); e.g.
Homer,
Iliad 8.450 (web address 1).
[1] The etymological comments that follow occur only in mss G (= Parisinus 2623) and T (= Vaticanus 881); cf.
Herodianus 3.2.30.
[2] This etymology, alpha-privative +
a(/ptomai ('touch'), is the one most commonly accepted nowadays. See LSJ s.v. (web address 2) and Schwyzer,
DGE. Yet there is reason for doubt, and the correct Homeric form (attested already by
Aristophanes of
Byzantium) may actually be
a)ept-. See Chantraine s.v.
a)/aptos.
P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, ed. 2 Paris 2009.
Associated internet addresses:
Web address 1,
Web address 2
Keywords: definition; dialects, grammar, and etymology; epic; poetry
Translated by: Anne Mahoney on 21 August 1998@16:48:12.
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