ἀδελφή
Ancient Greek
Alternative forms
Etymology
Feminine form of ἀδελφός (adelphós, “brother”). Displaced the reflex of Proto-Indo-European *swésōr (“sister”), still seen in ἔορ (éor, “daughter of a cousin”), a word found in Hesychius' lexicon.
Pronunciation
- (5th BCE Attic) IPA(key): /a.del.pʰɛ̌ː/
- (1st CE Egyptian) IPA(key): /a.delˈpʰe̝/
- (4th CE Koine) IPA(key): /a.ðelˈɸi/
- (10th CE Byzantine) IPA(key): /a.ðelˈfi/
- (15th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA(key): /a.ðelˈfi/
Noun
ἀδελφή • (adelphḗ) f (genitive ἀδελφῆς); first declension
- sister
- some other female relation, such as wife or cousin
Inflection
| Case / # | Singular | Dual | Plural | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ἡ ᾰ̓δελφή hē ădelphḗ |
τὼ ᾰ̓δελφᾱ́ tṑ ădelphā́ |
αἱ ᾰ̓δελφαί hai ădelphaí | ||||||||||
| Genitive | τῆς ᾰ̓δελφῆς tês ădelphês |
τοῖν ᾰ̓δελφαῖν toîn ădelphaîn |
τῶν ᾰ̓δελφῶν tôn ădelphôn | ||||||||||
| Dative | τῇ ᾰ̓δελφῇ tēî ădelphēî |
τοῖν ᾰ̓δελφαῖν toîn ădelphaîn |
ταῖς ᾰ̓δελφαῖς taîs ădelphaîs | ||||||||||
| Accusative | τὴν ᾰ̓δελφήν tḕn ădelphḗn |
τὼ ᾰ̓δελφᾱ́ tṑ ădelphā́ |
τᾱ̀ς ᾰ̓δελφᾱ́ς tā̀s ădelphā́s | ||||||||||
| Vocative | ᾰ̓δελφή ădelphḗ |
ᾰ̓δελφᾱ́ ădelphā́ |
ᾰ̓δελφαί ădelphaí | ||||||||||
| Notes: |
| ||||||||||||
Coordinate terms
- ἀδελφός (adelphós, “brother”)
Descendants
Further reading
- “ἀδελφή”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “ἀδελφή”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
- ἀδελφή 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
- ἀδελφή in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (2006–2025)
- G79 in Strong, James (1979) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
- Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language[1], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
- sister idem, page 779.