σάκκος

Most likely borrowed from Semitic, possibly from Phoenician. Compare Hebrew שַׂק‎, Imperial Aramaic 𐡔𐡒‎ (šq), Talmudic Aramaic סַקָּא‎, Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ‎, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), Akkadian 𒆭𒊓 (/šaqqu/), Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. The word is a widely-borrowed Mediterranean Kulturwort.

Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (“to gather or put together”) that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ (sok, “sackcloth”) and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק‎. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.

σᾰ́κκος • (sákkos) m (genitive σᾰ́κκου); second declension

1. a sack
2. sackcloth
3. (Christianity) a sackcloth vestment, penitential garb

• σακχυφάντης (sakkhuphántēs)

• Greek: σάκος (sákos)
• → Latin: saccus (see there for further descendants)

• Forbes, Robert Jacobus (1955) Studies in Ancient Technology, vol. IV, p. 66
• Černý, Jaroslav (1976) Coptic Etymological Dictionary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 149
• Vycichl, Werner (1983) Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Copte, Leuven: Peeters, →ISBN, page 186
• Hoch, James E. (1994) Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period, Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 269
• σάκκος in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• G4526 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.
  • bag idem, page 59.
  • pocket idem, page 622.
  • pouch idem, page 630.
  • sack idem, page 728.