θαλλός

Ancient Greek

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *dʰelh₁- (“to bloom, be green”), whence also θάλλω (thállō, “to bloom”). Compare Welsh dail (“leaves”) and Middle Irish duille (“foliage”). The sense “gift” comes about as a semantic loan from Egyptian, where two etymologically unrelated terms mnḥ (“papyrus stalk”) and mnḥtj (“tribute, gift”) were homophonous in Late Egyptian.

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /tʰal.lós/ → /θalˈlos/ → /θaˈlos/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /tʰal.lós/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /tʰalˈlos/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /θalˈlos/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /θalˈlos/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /θaˈlos/

Noun

θᾰλλός • (thallós) m (genitive θᾰλλοῦ); second declension

1. (botany) young shoot, young branch (especially of the olive)

   Synonyms: ἔρνος (érnos), ὄρπηξ (órpēx), πτόρθος (ptórthos), τέρχνος (térkhnos)

2. (in the plural) palm leaves, which were plaited into baskets
3. a gift, especially one given at festivals, or given to a landlord by one whose bid for a lease was accepted

Inflection

Second declension of ὁ θᾰλλός; τοῦ θᾰλλοῦ (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ θᾰλλός ho thallós	τὼ θᾰλλώ tṑ thallṓ	οἱ θᾰλλοί hoi thalloí
Genitive	τοῦ θᾰλλοῦ toû thalloû	τοῖν θᾰλλοῖν toîn thalloîn	τῶν θᾰλλῶν tôn thallôn
Dative	τῷ θᾰλλῷ tôi thallôi	τοῖν θᾰλλοῖν toîn thalloîn	τοῖς θᾰλλοῖς toîs thalloîs
Accusative	τὸν θᾰλλόν tòn thallón	τὼ θᾰλλώ tṑ thallṓ	τοὺς θᾰλλούς toùs thalloús
Vocative	θᾰλλέ thallé	θᾰλλώ thallṓ	θᾰλλοί thalloí
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

• θᾰλλοφορέω (thallophoréō)
• θᾰλλοφόρος (thallophóros)
• θᾰλλοφᾰγέω (thallophagéō)
• θᾰ́λλῐνος (thállinos)
• θᾰλλῐ́ον (thallíon)
• θᾰλλῐ́ᾱ (thallíā)

 

Descendants

• Greek: θαλλός (thallós)
• → English: thallus
• → Italian: tallo
• → Sicilian: taḍḍu

Further reading

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