οὐ
Ancient Greek
Alternative forms
- οὐκ (ouk) – before vowel with smooth breathing
- οὐχ (oukh) – before vowel with rough breathing
- οὔ (oú) – pausal form
- οὐχί (oukhí) – Epic, Attic
- οὐκί (oukí) – Epic, Ionic
Etymology
Possibly οὐκί (oukí, “not so, never”), from *ojukid, from Proto-Indo-European *(ne) h₂óyu kʷid (“not ever, not on your life”). Compare Sanskrit उद् (ud), Gothic 𐌿𐌳 (ud), Old Armenian ոչ (očʿ).
Pronunciation
- (5th BCE Attic) IPA(key): /oː/
- (1st CE Egyptian) IPA(key): /u/
- (4th CE Koine) IPA(key): /u/
- (10th CE Byzantine) IPA(key): /u/
- (15th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA(key): /u/
Usage notes
οὐ is the indicative negator (i.e. of facts, statements), where μή (mḗ) is the subjunctive negator (i.e. of will, thought). It usually immediately precedes the word (most often a verb) which it negates. Negative concord (also known as double negatives) is frequent in Ancient Greek.
References
- οὐ in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- οὐ in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
- οὐ in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
- οὐ 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
- οὐ in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
- οὐ in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
- G3756 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.
- 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
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