οἴομαι

• ὀΐομαι (oḯomai) — Homeric
• οἶμαι (oîmai) — Attic

For earlier ὀϝίομαι (owíomai), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew- (“perceive”).

οἴομαι • (oíomai)

1. to anticipate or to conclude likely with less than complete evidence: to conjecture, to guess or to surmise, in a variety of significations
   1. to consider certain or highly probable: to expect, to look to, to look for
   2. to have a presentiment of something: to forebode, to foretell, to predict, to presage
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 13.283
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 10.248
   3. to look for a contingency: to hope, to fear
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 24.401
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 9.339
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 10.380
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 19.390
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 14.298
   4. to express full persuasion, either modestly or ironically: to think, to suppose

      Synonym: προσδοκᾰ́ω (prosdokắō)

   5. (when the event rests with oneself): to have in mind as a goal or motive for action: to aim, to mean, to intend, to purport, to purpose, to propose
   6. to conceive, to deem, to imagine, to suspect (of an opinion or judgment)

      Synonym: σκέπτομαι (sképtomai)

2. (construction)
   1. (with accusative and infinitive, mostly with future infinitive)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 1.78
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 5.252
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 1.204
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 20.195
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 4.453
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 10.232
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 1.323
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 5.894
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 1.558
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 3.27
   2. (with infinitive)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 6.341
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 1.296
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 19.215
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 13.262
      1. (sometimes the subject of the infinitive is to be supplied from the context)
         • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 15.278
         • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 1.201
         • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 12.212
         • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 12.66
   3. (absolute)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 1.561
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 9.453
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 15.443
   4. (impersonal)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 19.312
   5. (transitive) to wait for, look for
      1. (in many cases an infinitive must be supplied from the context)
   6. (used parenthetically, mostly in the first-person)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 8.536
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 16.309
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 13.153
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 2.255
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 22.140
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 14.363
      • 458 BCE, Aeschylus, The Libation Bearers 758
      • 380 BCE, Plato, The Republic 486C
      • 366 BCE – 348 BCE, Plato, Theaetetus 147B
      • 385 BCE – 380 BCE, Plato, Symposium 216D
      1. (in Attic)
         1. (expressive of modesty or courtesy, to avoid over-great bluntness of assertion)
            • 380 BCE, Plato, Gorgias 483C
            • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.3.11
            • 380 BCE, Plato, The Republic 564A
            • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Demosthenes, Against Leptines 3
            • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Demosthenes, Against Conon 38
         2. (answering a question, expressive of positive certainty) to believe you, of course, no doubt
            • 446 BCE – 386 BCE, Aristophanes, The Acharnians 919
            • 411 BCE, Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 27
            • 400 BCE – 387 BCE, Plato, Crito 47D
            • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Protagoras 325C
            • 400 BCE – 387 BCE, Plato, Crito 53D
            • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Phaedo 68B
            • 380 BCE, Plato, Gorgias 522A
   7. (peculiar Attic phrases)
      1. (as a parenthetic question) πῶς οἴει, πῶς οἴεσθε ― pôs oíei, pôs oíesthe ― how think you?
         • 405 BCE, Aristophanes, The Frogs 54
      2. οἴομαι δεῖν ― oíomai deîn ― to hold it necessary, think it one's duty (see δέω (déō))
      • 386 BCE – 367 BCE, Plato, Meno 95C
      • 366 BCE – 348 BCE, Plato, Theaetetus 207E
      • 361 BCE, Demosthenes, Against Midias 143
      • 338 BCE, Demosthenes, Funeral Speech 31
      • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Protagoras 316C
      • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Anabasis 2.6.26
      • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.6.3
      • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1152A.6
      • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1136B.8
      • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Hipparchus 225B
      • 406 BCE, Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 28
      • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Second Alcibiades 144D

Homer has forms with diaeresis, and several forms of the present middle often have long ῑ for the sake of meter; otherwise ὀίομαι (oíomai), for instance, would begin in short–short–short, which is unmetrical.

See also ὀῑ̈́ω (oī̈́ō)

• (from the syncopated Attic form) ἐγᾦμαι (egōîmai)

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