πυρός

Ancient Greek

Etymology 1

From a Proto-Indo-European *puH-ro-s (“corn, wheat”), also reflected in Lithuanian pū́ras (“single winter corn”), Proto-Slavic *py̑rь (“dog-grass”), and Old English fyrs (“idem”). Further analysis of the root is disputed:

• Trubachev takes the root as a nominal derivative from Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥ (“fire”), like πῦρ (pûr, “fire”). The original sense would have been “spelt”, due to the grains having to be dried on fire, with semantic transfer onto the later popular wheat, while other languages used new formations from different roots to denote wheat, such as Proto-Germanic *hwaitijaz, Proto-Slavic *pьšenica, etc.
• Derived from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“to strike, hit”), and compared with Latin paviō (“idem”), as grains are beaten and cleaned in order to harvest them.
• An old Wanderwort of ultimately unclear origin, which entered Proto-Indo-European before the various branches diverged. Beekes appears to tentatively favor this theory. See the following footnote for more.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /pyː.rós/ → /pyˈros/ → /piˈros/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /pyː.rós/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /pyˈros/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /pyˈros/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /pyˈros/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /piˈros/

Noun

πῡρός • (pūrós) m (genitive πῡροῦ); second declension

1. wheat
2. a grain of wheat

Inflection

Second declension of ὁ πῡρός; τοῦ πῡροῦ (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ πῡρός ho pūrós	τὼ πῡρώ tṑ pūrṓ	οἱ πῡροί hoi pūroí
Genitive	τοῦ πῡροῦ toû pūroû	τοῖν πῡροῖν toîn pūroîn	τῶν πῡρῶν tôn pūrôn
Dative	τῷ πῡρῷ tôi pūrôi	τοῖν πῡροῖν toîn pūroîn	τοῖς πῡροῖς toîs pūroîs
Accusative	τὸν πῡρόν tòn pūrón	τὼ πῡρώ tṑ pūrṓ	τοὺς πῡρούς toùs pūroús
Vocative	πῡρέ pūré	πῡρώ pūrṓ	πῡροί pūroí
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

• διόσπῡρος (dióspūros)
• (perhaps) πῡραμίς (pūramís)
• πῡρομέτρης (pūrométrēs)
• πῡρήν (pūrḗn)

Descendants

• →? Arabic: بُرّ (burr, “wheat”)
• → Old Georgian: პური (ṗuri)
  • Georgian: პური (ṗuri, “wheat; bread”)
    • → Armenian: պուրի (puri)
• ⇒ Sicilian: puru puru (interjection used to call hens, now disconnected from the sense of “wheat”)

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /py.rós/ → /pyˈros/ → /piˈros/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /py.rós/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /pyˈros/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /pyˈros/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /pyˈros/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /piˈros/

Noun

πῠρός • (pŭrós)

1. genitive singular of πῦρ (pûr)

Further reading

• “πυρός”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “πυρός”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “πυρός”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• πυρός in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• πυρός in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• G4450 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.
  • corn idem, page 174.
  • wheat idem, page 974.
• “πυρός”, in ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ [Logeion] Dictionaries for Ancient Greek and Latin (in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese), University of Chicago, since 2011

Greek

Noun

πυρός • (pyrós) n

1. genitive singular of πυρ (pyr)