κλῆρος

Ancient Greek

Of disputed origin:

Traditionally derived from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂-, a metathesized form of *kelh₂- (“to hit, cut down”). Cognate with Latin clādes, Proto-Germanic *hultą (“wood, timber; copse, thicket”) (English holt), Old Irish caill (“forest, wood, woodland”), and maybe Albanian shul (“door latch”). Compare Ancient Greek κλᾰ́δος (kládos, “branch, shoot”) and κόλαφος (kólaphos, “hit, blow”, noun), which may or may not be derived from the same root, as well as κλᾰ́ω (kláō, “to break off”), from *kelh₂-.
An alternative etymology by Matasovic links Proto-Celtic *klāros (“board, plank”) (whence Proto-Brythonic *klọr, Old Irish clár), from Proto-Indo-European *kléh₂ros, assuming the original meaning of the Greek word was “piece of wood for casting lots” (said original meaning is also agreed on by Beekes).^[1] For this, the PIE root may be *kleh₂- (“to lay out, lay down, set, load, stow”), if not identical to the above.
Beekes doubts these etymologies on purely semantic grounds and suggests a Pre-Greek origin.^[2]

κλῆρος • (klêros) m (genitive κλήρου); second declension (Epic, Attic, Ionic, Koine)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ κλῆρος ho klêros	τὼ κλήρω tṑ klḗrō	οἱ κλῆροι hoi klêroi
Genitive	τοῦ κλήρου toû klḗrou	τοῖν κλήροιν toîn klḗroin	τῶν κλήρων tôn klḗrōn
Dative	τῷ κλήρῳ tôi klḗrōi	τοῖν κλήροιν toîn klḗroin	τοῖς κλήροις toîs klḗrois
Accusative	τὸν κλῆρον tòn klêron	τὼ κλήρω tṑ klḗrō	τοὺς κλήρους toùs klḗrous
Vocative	κλῆρε klêre	κλήρω klḗrō	κλῆροι klêroi
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

^ Matasović, Ranko (2009) “*klāro-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 9), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, pages 206–207
^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) “κλῆρος”, in Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 715

“κλῆρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“κλῆρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
“κλῆρος”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
κλῆρος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
κλῆρος in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
G2819 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.
- allotment idem, page 25.
- assignment idem, page 46.
- cast idem, page 116.
- estate idem, page 283.
- inheritance idem, page 440.
- lot idem, page 501.
- portion idem, page 627.
- property idem, page 653.
“clerk”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.