πᾶς
Word
Validation
Yes
Word-form
πόντος
Word-lemma
Etymon-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
pontos
English translation (word)
sea
Transliteration (Etymon)
pās
English translation (etymon)
all
Century
9 AD
Source
Idem
Ref.
Epimerismi homerici ordine alphabetico traditi, pi 117
Ed.
A.R. Dyck, Epimerismi Homerici: Pars altera. Lexicon αἱμωδεῖν [Sammlung griechischer und lateinischer Grammatiker (SGLG) 5.2], Berlin - New York: De Gruyter, 1995: 59-761.
Quotation
πόντος: ὁ μὲν Φιλόξενος παρὰ τὸ πένεσθαι, τουτέστι καταπονεῖσθαι καὶ ἐνεργεῖν· οἱ δὲ παρὰ τὸ εἰσρεῖν αὐτὸν πάντας τοὺς ποταμούς, παρὰ τὴν παντός γενικήν. ἡμῖν δὲ δοκεῖ παρὰ τὸ πνέω πνότος, ἐξ οὗ αἱ πνοαί, καὶ πόντος ἐν ὑπερθέσει· Ὅμηρος· αἶψα δὲ πόντον ἵκανον ἀήμεναι
Translation (En)
Pontos "sea": Philoxenus says it is from penesthai "to toil", that is to work hard and be active. Others say it comes from the fact that all the rivers flow into it, from the genitive case pantos "of all". But I think it is from pneō "to blow", *pnotos, from which come the winds (pnoai), and pontos through metathesis. Homer "and quickly they came to the sea to blow" (Il. 23.214)
Modern etymology
Πόντος "sea" is an old noun meaning "way", cognate with Latin pons, pontis "bridge", Ru. put' "way", and Sanscrite pantha- "way", from PIE *ponth2o- (Beekes, EDG)
Persistence in Modern Greek
Ποντος still exists as the name of the region on the S-E coast of the Black Sea (Εύξεινος πόντος after its Ancient Greek name, or Μαὐρη θάλασσα)
Entry By
Le Feuvre
Comment
This explanation is found here only. It starts from an inflected form, the genitive, of the pronoun "all". This implies only one formal manipulation, the change of [a] into [o]. The sea is etymologized as a "all-(receiver)", where the verbal notion remains implicit