γείνομαι
Word
Validation
Yes
Word-form
γυνή
Word-lemma
Etymon-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
gunē
English translation (word)
woman
Transliteration (Etymon)
geinomai
English translation (etymon)
to beget
Century
9 AD
Source
Idem
Ref.
Canones, sive De orthographia 506
Ed.
J.A. Cramer, Anecdota Graeca e codd. manuscriptis bibliothecarum Oxoniensium, vol. 2, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1835 (repr. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1963)
Quotation
Γυνὴ· παρὰ γὰρ τὸ γείνω, ὃ δηλοῖ τὸ τίκτω, γονὴ, καὶ τροπῇ τοῦ ο εἰς υ Αἰολικῇ, ὡς ὅμοιον ὔμμιον, γονὴ γυνή.
Translation (En)
Gunē "woman" comes from geinō which means "to give birth", one gets gonē "birth" and by changing the [o] into [u] in the Aeolic fashion, as homoion / hummion, gonē becomes gunē.
Parallels
See under γυνή / γονή.
Modern etymology
Γυνή is the old Indo-European word for "woman", found for instance in Slavic žena and in English queen (Beekes, EDG).
Persistence in Modern Greek
The word is used in MG only in phrases such as "πυρ γυνή και θάλασσα" ("fire, woman and sea"). The usual form is "γυναίκα" (woman; plural: "γυναίκες"), the old Accusative singular (Triandafyllidis, Dictionary of MG)
Entry By
Le Feuvre
Comment
This etymology is identical with the usual one deriving γυνή from γονή, it goes a step further since here the noun γονή itself is derived from the verb γείνομαι. See γυνή / γονή. A variant derives it from γεννάω "to beget": Scholia in Odysseam α 1f Pontani (ἀνὴρ παρὰ τὸ ἀνύειν δύνασθαι γέγονε, γυνὴ δὲ παρὰ τὸ γεννᾶν, ἄρσην δὲ παρὰ τὸ ἀρόσαι.).