κόφινος

Ancient Greek

Etymology

Uncertain; possibly Semitic or Hurrian. Compare κόφος (kóphos, “basket-load”) and Arabic قُفَّة (quffa, “large wicker-basket”) and Arabic قَفِيز (qafīz, “a dry measure”) for a picture of the frequency of container names with guttural onset leading over an open vowel to a labial plosive or fricative. See Akkadian 𒄣𒌒𒁍 (/⁠quppu⁠/, “wicker basket”).

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /kó.pʰi.nos/ → /ˈko.ɸi.nos/ → /ˈko.fi.nos/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /kó.pʰi.nos/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /ˈko.pʰi.nos/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /ˈko.ɸi.nos/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /ˈko.fi.nos/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /ˈko.fi.nos/

Noun

κόφῐνος • (kóphinos) m (genitive κοφῐ́νου); second declension

1. basket

Inflection

Second declension of ὁ κόφῐνος; τοῦ κοφῐ́νου (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ κόφῐνος ho kóphinos	τὼ κοφῐ́νω tṑ kophínō	οἱ κόφῐνοι hoi kóphinoi
Genitive	τοῦ κοφῐ́νου toû kophínou	τοῖν κοφῐ́νοιν toîn kophínoin	τῶν κοφῐ́νων tôn kophínōn
Dative	τῷ κοφῐ́νῳ tôi kophínōi	τοῖν κοφῐ́νοιν toîn kophínoin	τοῖς κοφῐ́νοις toîs kophínois
Accusative	τὸν κόφῐνον tòn kóphinon	τὼ κοφῐ́νω tṑ kophínō	τοὺς κοφῐ́νους toùs kophínous
Vocative	κόφῐνε kóphine	κοφῐ́νω kophínō	κόφῐνοι kóphinoi
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Descendants

• → Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: כפוני (“basket”)
• → Latin: cophinus (see there for further descendants)
  • → English: coffin

Further reading

• “κόφινος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “κόφινος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• κόφινος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• G2894 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.
  • basket idem, page 64.
• 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