τῆλις

Ancient Greek

Etymology

There is no certain explanation. Traditionally compared to Latin talea (“stave, cutting”) and Sanskrit ताल (tāla, “palm tree”) but such guesses have been abandoned recently. Possibly connected to Proto-Albanian *talā (“cornstalk”).

Pronunciation

(5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /tɛ̂ː.lis/
(1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /ˈte̝.lis/
(4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /ˈti.lis/
(10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /ˈti.lis/
(15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /ˈti.lis/

Noun

τῆλις • (têlis) f (genitive τήλεως); third declension

fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum)
Synonyms: αἰγόκερας (aigókeras), βούκερας (boúkeras)

Declension

Third declension of ἡ τῆλῐς; τῆς τήλεως (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ἡ τῆλῐς hē têlĭs	τὼ τήλει tṑ tḗlei	αἱ τήλεις hai tḗleis
Genitive	τῆς τήλεως tês tḗleōs	τοῖν τηλέοιν toîn tēléoin	τῶν τήλεων tôn tḗleōn
Dative	τῇ τήλει tēî tḗlei	τοῖν τηλέοιν toîn tēléoin	ταῖς τήλεσῐ / τήλεσῐν taîs tḗlesĭ(n)
Accusative	τὴν τῆλῐν tḕn têlĭn	τὼ τήλει tṑ tḗlei	τᾱ̀ς τήλεις tā̀s tḗleis
Vocative	τῆλῐ têlĭ	τήλει tḗlei	τήλεις tḗleis
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

ἐπιτηλίς (epitēlís)
τηλίνη (tēlínē)
τήλινος (tḗlinos)
τηλίτης (tēlítēs)

Descendants

Latin: tēlis

References

“τῆλις”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
τῆλις 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
“τῆλις – Trigonella foenum-graecum”, in Dioscórides Interactivo‎^[1] (in Spanish), 2025