ὀφέλλω 2
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Etymon-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
English translation (word)
Transliteration (Etymon)
English translation (etymon)
Century
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Quotation
τὸ μέντοι τῶν ὀβολῶν ὄνομα οἱ μὲν ὅτι πάλαι βουπόροις ὀβελοῖς ἐχρῶντο πρὸς τὰς ἀμοιβάς, […]· Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ ταὐτὸν λέγων] ἐν Σικυωνίων πολιτείᾳ σμικρόν τι καινοτομεῖ, ὀφελοὺς αὐτοὺς τέως ὠνομάσθαι λέγων, τοῦ μὲν ὀφέλλειν δηλοῦντος τὸ αὔξειν, αὐτῶν δὲ διὰ τὸ εἰς μῆκος ηὐξῆσθαι ὧδε κληθέντων. ὅθεν καὶ τὸ ὀφείλειν ὠνομάσθαι φησὶν οὐκ οἶδ’ ὅπως· ἐπὶ μέντοι τῶν ὀβελῶν ὑπηλλάχθαι τὸ φ εἰς τὸ β κατὰ συγγένειαν
Translation (En)
The name of the obol is said to come from the fact that in the past people used spits (obelois) for their exchanges […]. Aristoteles, saying the same thing, brings something new in his Constitution of Sicyon, saying they were named *opheloi for a while, because ophellō means "to grow", and they were thus named because their length had increased. He also says that from there comes the verb opheilein "to owe", I don't know how; anyway, the obeloi, he says, changed their [ph] into [b] because they are similar sounds.
Parallels
There is no parallel for ὀβελός
Comment
Derivational etymology relying on one formal change, the aspirate [ph] becoming a voiced [b]. Aristotle justified it because of the phonetic proximity between the two labial consonants. The semantic aspect is harder to understand: the name of the spit comes from its length, but Aristotle does not start from "long" or "length", but from the verb "to increase"—the spit would be the "increased" one. This etymology is not often found for ὀβελός but only for ὀβελισκός (see ὀβελισκός / ὀφέλλω)