κοέω + φάος
Word
Validation
No
Word-form
κωφός
Word-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
kōphos
English translation (word)
blunt, mute
Transliteration (Etymon)
koeō + chaos
English translation (etymon)
to hear + light
Century
11 AD
Source
idem
Ref.
Etym. Gudianum, kappa, p. 358
Ed.
F. Sturz, Etymologicum Graecae linguae Gudianum et alia grammaticorum scripta e codicibus manuscriptis nunc primum edita, Leipzig: Weigel, 1818 (repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1973)
Quotation
Κωφὸς, ὁ ἐν αὐτῷ τὴν ὄπα ἔχων, κυρίως δὲ, ὁ μὴ λαλῶν· λέγεται καὶ ἐπὶ μὴ ἀκούοντος· κωφὸς δὲ ὁ μὴ κοῶν, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ὁ ἀγνοῶν τὸ φῶς, ὃ ἔστιν ὁ φωνὴν ἀγνοῶν.
Translation (En)
Kōphos "mute", he who has a voice within himself; properly speaking, the man who cannot speak. It can also apply to a man who cannot hear. And kōphos is the one who does not hear (mē koōn), that is to say, who does not recognize the light (phōs), that is to say, who does not recognize the voice.
Parallels
There is no parallel
Modern etymology
Within Greek, related to κεκαφηότα "exhausted". No known cognates (Beekes, EDG)
Persistence in Modern Greek
MG still has κωφός "deaf" as a learned word, the usual word is κουφός
Entry By
Le Feuvre
Comment
Compositional etymology, designed for κωφός meaning "deaf". The etymon is assumed to be a privative compound "not hearing voice" (μὴ κοῶν), with the privative a- being subsequently dropped (the latter change is not explicit in the Gudianum). The φῶς may be either the word for "light" or an invented form derived from φωνή for the sake of the etymology.