αὔω + λεῖος
Word
Validation
No
Word-form
αὐλή
Word-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
aulē
English translation (word)
courtyard
Transliteration (Etymon)
auō + leios
English translation (etymon)
to burn + smooth
Century
9 AD
Source
Idem
Ref.
Epimerismi in Psalmos p. 183
Ed.
T. Gaisford, Georgii Choerobosci epimerismi in Psalmos, vol. 3, Oxford, 1842
Quotation
αὐλή, παρὰ τὸ αὔω, τὸ λάμπω καὶ τὸ λεῖον, καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ λεία οὖσα λάμπειν
Translation (En)
Aulē "courtyard": from auō "to shine", and leios "smooth", and it is so called because it shines because of its smoothness
Parallels
There is no parallel
Modern etymology
Αὐλή is an old derivative of the PIE root *h2wes- "to spend the night", found in Vedic vásati "he dwells" and in Engl. was. Within Greek, it is connected with the aorist ἄεσα < ἄϝεσα "I spent the night" (Beekes, EDG)
Persistence in Modern Greek
The word is still used in Modern Greek to designate 1. the yard, 2. the court of a king, or the closest persons of an important powerful individual, sometimes meaning 'flatterers'
Entry By
Le Feuvre
Comment
Next to the more frequent etymology deriving αὐλή from αὔω (see αὐλή / αὔω), we have here an etymology parsing the word as a compound. The first element is the same as in the competing explanation, and the second element is here to account for the [l], left unexplained in the derivational explanation. In an iotacizing state of Greek, λεῖος was pronounced [lios], with the same [li] as αὐλή [avli]. The courtyard shines because the stones are polished, that is, smooth.