ἔγκειμαι

Validation

No

Word-form

ἔγκατα

Transliteration (Word)

enkata

English translation (word)

entrails

Transliteration (Etymon)

enkeimai

English translation (etymon)

to lie within

Author

Etym. Magnum

Century

12 AD

Source

Idem

Ref.

Etym. Magnum, Kallierges, p. 310

Ed.

T. Gaisford, Etymologicum Magnum, Oxford 1848

Quotation

Ἔγκατα: Τὰ ἔντερα· ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐγκατέχειν τὴν  τροφήν· λέγει δὲ τὸ ἧπαρ, καὶ τὸν σπλῆνα, καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸν πνεύμονα. Ἔντερον δὲ, οὐκ ἔγκατον. Τὸ δὲ ἔντερον, οἷον ἕτερον καὶ οὐχ ὅμοιον· ἢ παρὰ τὸ ἐντὸς κεῖσθαι τῶν μελῶν

Translation (En)

Enkata "entrails": from the fact that they retain food in themselves. This applies to what is next to the liver, the spleen and the lung. But the intestine (enteron) is not an entrail: the intestine is as though it were 'the other one' (heteron), not similar; or it comes from the fact that they lie (keisthai) inside (entos) the body

Comment

If the last clause refers to ἔγκατα and not to ἔντερον, the word is derived from ἔγκειμαι, here decomposed as ἐντὸς κεῖσθαι. This is a descriptive etymology defining the entrails by reference to their position. The etymology is of the acrophonic type and keeps only the beginning of ἔγκειμαι, adding then the suffix -ατα which was well identified by Greek etymologists.

Parallels

Etym. Symeonis, epsilon 27 Baldi (idem); Ps.-Zonaras, Lexicon, epsilon, p. 603 (idem)

Bibliography

On the etymological and semantic study, see J.-L. Perpillou and Ch. de Lamberterie, Revue de Philologie 72, 1998, 247-257.

Modern etymology

Unclear. The word has been related to ὄγκος "swelling" (Perpillou / Lamberterie 1998), which remains uncertain

Persistence in Modern Greek

The word έγκατα is still used in Modern Greek designating "the deepest part", either literally as in "τα έγκατα της γης", "the deepest down part of earth", or metaaphorically, as "τα έγκατα της ψυχής".

Entry By

Le Feuvre