ὡσεί

Ancient Greek

Etymology

From ὡς (hōs, “as”) + εἰ (ei, “if”).

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /hɔː.sěː/ → /oˈsi/ → /oˈsi/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /hɔː.sěː/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /(h)oˈsi/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /oˈsi/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /oˈsi/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /oˈsi/

Adverb

ὡσεί • (hōseí)

1. as if, as though
   1. (with optative)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 2.780
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 11.389
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 9.314
   2. (ὡσεί τε, with subjunctive)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 9.481
   3. (ὡς εἰ or ὡς εἴ τε, with indicative)
      • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 13.492
      • 522 BCE – 443 BCE, Pindar, Olympian Ode 7.1
2. (in mere comparisons, as if, like, just)
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 16.59
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 7.36
   • 750 BCE – 650 BCE, Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles 290
   • 500 BCE – 400 BCE, Bacchylides, Collected Works 11.1
   • 442 BCE, Sophocles, Antigone 653
   • 497 BCE – 405 BCE, Sophocles, Electra 234
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 5.374
   • 750 BCE – 650 BCE, Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles 194
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 11.474
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Odyssey 14.254
   • 522 BCE – 443 BCE, Pindar, Pythian Ode 4.112
   • 750 BCE – 650 BCE, Hesiod, The Shield of Heracles 189
   • 300 BCE – 200 BCE, Theocritus, Collected Works 25.163
   • 7th–6th centuries BC, Homeric Hymn to Demeter 215
3. (like ὡς, with numerals or measures of time and space) about
   • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 7.109
   • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Hellenica 1.2.9
   • 300 BCE – 200 BCE, Septuagint, Genesis 24.55
   • 70 CE – 110 CE, The Gospel of Matthew 14:21

References

• “ὡσεί”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ὡσεί”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “ὡσεί”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• ὡσεί in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• G5616 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.
  • like idem, page 491.