Φοῖνιξ
Ancient Greek
Etymology
The ethnonym is homophonous with φοῖνιξ (phoînix), the Greek name of Tyrian purple. There has been some debate as to whether the ethnonym was derived from the name of the dye or vice versa. While it seems in any case likely that both are influenced by the genuinely Greek adjective φοινός (phoinós, “blood-red”), use of the ethnonym is found in use in ancient Mycenean as 𐀡𐀛𐀑𐀍 (po-ni-ki-jo). This in turn is apparently borrowed from the Egyptian fnḫw (fenkhu), probably their plural term for "woodcutters" or "carpenters", which would refer to the peoples of the land of Canaan in the region of the Levant to the north, who supplied Egypt with the cedar wood cut from their forests.
Pronunciation
- (5th BCE Attic) IPA(key): /pʰôi̯.niks/
- (1st CE Egyptian) IPA(key): /ˈpʰy.niks/
- (4th CE Koine) IPA(key): /ˈɸy.niks/
- (10th CE Byzantine) IPA(key): /ˈfy.niks/
- (15th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA(key): /ˈfi.niks/
Noun
Φοῖνῐξ • (Phoînix) m or f (genitive Φοίνῑκος); third declension
- Phoenician
- Carthaginian (as descendants of Phoenicia)
Proper noun
Φοῖνῐξ • (Phoînix) m (genitive Φοίνῑκος); third declension
- Phoenix, a city on the Mediterranean Sea.
Inflection
- Inflection is the same for both noun and proper noun.
Case / # | Singular | Dual | Plural | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nominative | ὁ, ἡ Φοῖνῐξ ho, hē Phoînix |
τὼ Φοίνῑκε tṑ Phoínīke |
οἱ, αἱ Φοίνῑκες hoi, hai Phoínīkes | ||||||||||
Genitive | τοῦ, τῆς Φοίνῑκος toû, tês Phoínīkos |
τοῖν Φοινῑ́κοιν toîn Phoinī́koin |
τῶν Φοινῑ́κων tôn Phoinī́kōn | ||||||||||
Dative | τῷ, τῇ Φοίνῑκῐ tôi, têi Phoínīki |
τοῖν Φοινῑ́κοιν toîn Phoinī́koin |
τοῖς, ταῖς Φοίνῑξῐ / Φοίνῑξῐν toîs, taîs Phoínīxi(n) | ||||||||||
Accusative | τὸν, τὴν Φοίνῑκᾰ tòn, tḕn Phoínīka |
τὼ Φοίνῑκε tṑ Phoínīke |
τοὺς, τᾱ̀ς Φοίνῑκᾰς toùs, tā̀s Phoínīkas | ||||||||||
Vocative | Φοῖνῐξ Phoînix |
Φοίνῑκε Phoínīke |
Φοίνῑκες Phoínīkes | ||||||||||
Notes: |
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Further reading
- Φοῖνιξ in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- Φοῖνιξ in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
- Φοῖνιξ in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
- 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
- Φοῖνιξ in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
- G5405 in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979
- Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited, page 1,022