δυάς
Word
Validation
Word-form
Word-lemma
Etymon-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
English translation (word)
Transliteration (Etymon)
English translation (etymon)
Century
Source
Ref.
Ed.
Quotation
Δυὰς τοίνυν λέγεται παρὰ τὸ διήκειν καὶ διεξιέναι ἐπὶ κίνησιν ἀπὸ τῆς μονάδος τῷ πρώτην ταύτην τολμῆσαι διεξιέναι ἀπὸ τῆς μονάδος. καὶ ταῦτα μὲν περὶ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτῆς. αὕτη δὲ ἡ δυὰς ἐπὶ κακῷ λέγεται, ‘δύσφημος’, ‘δύσπορος’, ‘δυστυχής’, ‘δυσχερής’· ἀλλὰ καὶ ποιητικῶς κακοφημεῖται ὁ βʹ οὗτος ἀριθμός, ‘Δύσπαρι, εἶδος ἄριστε, γυναικομανές, ἠπεροπευτά’, ὥσπερ τῆς μονάδος τὸ ἕνα ἐπὶ ἀγαθῷ, ‘ἐνηέα τε κρατερόν τε’
Translation (En)
Duas "dyad" is called from the fact it goes through and moves away from the monad, by the fact it was the first to dare going away from the monad. So much for the name. And the word duas itself is used to mean "badly", dusphēmos "of ill omen", dusporos "difficult to go through", dustukhēs "unhappy", duskherēs "difficult to handle". And in poetry this number two is pejorative: "Duspari, edits arise, gunaikomanes, ēperopeuta" (Il. 3.39) ("Evil Paris, beautiful, woman-crazy, cajoling"), as the "one" of the monad is used in good part, "enēea te krater te" (Il. 17.204) ("gentle and valiant")
Comment
Derivational etymology by which the prefix δυσ- "mis-, un-" is derived from δυάς. Formally, the etymology requires the loss of the vowel. As often the starting point is the nominative form, although it is not the stem of the word, which is δυάδ-. Semantically, this relies on the widespread idea that unity is good, which is here backed by an summed etymological relationship between εἷς, ἑνός "one" and the poetic word ἐνηής "gentle", and that division is bad