θαλλός

Ancient Greek

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *dʰelh₁- (“to bloom, be green”), whence also θάλλω (thállō, “to bloom”). Compare Welsh dail (“leaves”) and Middle Irish duille (“foliage”). The sense “gift” comes about as a semantic loan from Egyptian, where two etymologically unrelated terms mnḥ (“papyrus stalk”) and mnḥtj (“tribute, gift”) were homophonous in Late Egyptian.^[1]

Pronunciation

(5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /tʰal.lós/
(1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /tʰalˈlos/
(4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /θalˈlos/
(10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /θalˈlos/
(15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /θaˈlos/

Noun

θᾰλλός • (thăllós) m (genitive θᾰλλοῦ); second declension

(botany) young shoot, young branch (especially of the olive)
Synonyms: ἔρνος (érnos), ὄρπηξ (órpēx), πτόρθος (ptórthos), τέρχνος (térkhnos)
(in the plural) palm leaves, which were plaited into baskets
a gift, especially one given at festivals, or given to a landlord by one whose bid for a lease was accepted

Inflection

Second declension of ὁ θᾰλλός; τοῦ θᾰλλοῦ (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ θᾰλλός ho thăllós	τὼ θᾰλλώ tṑ thăllṓ	οἱ θᾰλλοί hoi thălloí
Genitive	τοῦ θᾰλλοῦ toû thălloû	τοῖν θᾰλλοῖν toîn thălloîn	τῶν θᾰλλῶν tôn thăllôn
Dative	τῷ θᾰλλῷ tōî thăllōî	τοῖν θᾰλλοῖν toîn thălloîn	τοῖς θᾰλλοῖς toîs thălloîs
Accusative	τὸν θᾰλλόν tòn thăllón	τὼ θᾰλλώ tṑ thăllṓ	τοὺς θᾰλλούς toùs thălloús
Vocative	θᾰλλέ thăllé	θᾰλλώ thăllṓ	θᾰλλοί thălloí
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

θᾰλλῐ́ᾱ (thăllĭ́ā)
θᾰ́λλῐνος (thắllĭnos)
θᾰλλῐ́ον (thăllĭ́on)
θᾰλλοφᾰγέω (thăllophăgéō)
θᾰλλοφορέω (thăllophoréō)
θᾰλλοφόρος (thăllophóros)

Descendants

→ Greek: θαλλός (thallós)
→ Latin: thallus
- → English: thallus
- → Italian: tallo
- → Sicilian: taḍḍu
- → Spanish: tallo

“θαλλός”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“θαλλός”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
“θαλλός”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
θαλλός in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
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

^ Derchain, P. (1955) “Une origine égyptienne de l’emploi du mot θαλλός = ‘cadeau’ dans les papyrus grecs d’Égypte?” in Chronique d’Égypte volume 30, pages 324–326

[1] Derchain, P. (1955) “Une origine égyptienne de l’emploi du mot θαλλός = ‘cadeau’ dans les papyrus grecs d’Égypte?” in Chronique d’Égypte volume 30, pages 324–326

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