νέος
Word
Validation
Word-form
Word-lemma
Etymon-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
English translation (word)
Transliteration (Etymon)
English translation (etymon)
Century
Source
Ref.
Ed.
Quotation
Δεῖ δὲ γινώσκειν, ὅτι φασί τινες ὡς καὶ τὸ νῆϊς, ὃ σημαίνει τὸν μηδὲν ἐπιστάμενον ἤγουν τὸν ἄπειρον, παρώνυμόν ἐστι καὶ τούτου χάριν ὡς παρώνυμον καὶ μακροπαράληκτον διὰ τοῦ δος κλίνεται, οἷον νήϊδος, ὡς παρὰ Καλλιμάχῳ <fragm. 488 Sch.> <νήϊδες οἳ Μούσης οὐκ ἐγένοντο φίλοι· φασὶ γὰρ ὅτι ἀπὸ τοῦ νέος γέγονε νέϊς παρώνυμον καὶ κατ’ ἐπέκτασιν τοῦ ε εἰς τὸ η νῆϊς, τοῖς γὰρ νέοις παρέπεται τὸ μηδὲν ἐπίστασθαι. Οὗτοι δὲ οὐκ ἀκριβῶς λέγουσιν· οὐκ ἔστι γὰρ ἁπλοῦν, ἀλλὰ σύνθετον ἀπὸ τοῦ νή τοῦ στερητικοῦ ἐπιρρήματος καὶ τοῦ εἴδω τοῦ σημαίνοντος τὸ ἐπίσταμαι, οἷον ὁ ἐστερημένος τοῦ ἐπίστασθαι, καὶ λοιπὸν τοῦ εἴδω τὸ σύμφωνον ἐφύλαξε κατὰ τὴν κλίσιν, φημὶ δὴ τὸ δ· διατί δὲ τοῦ εἴδω διὰ τῆς ει διφθόγγου γραφομένου τὸ νῆϊς διὰ τοῦ ι γράφεται, ἐν τῇ ὀρθογραφίᾳ εἰ θεῷ φίλον μαθησόμεθα. Ὅτι γὰρ οὐ δύναται τὸ νῆϊς ἀπὸ τοῦ νέος εἶναι, ἵνα παρώνυμον καὶ ἁπλοῦν λάβωμεν αὐτό, δείκνυσι τὸ οὐδέτερον νήϊον· οὐδέποτε γὰρ τὰ εἰς ις ἁπλᾶ ποιοῦσιν οὐδετέρου παρασχηματισμόν, οἷον ὄφις μάντις πόλις, χωρὶς τοῦ τίς· τοῦτο γὰρ ποιεῖ οὐδέτερον τὸ τί, ἐπειδὴ πευστικόν ἐστι, τὰ δὲ πευστικὰ ἐν τριγενείᾳ παραλαμβάνονται, οἷον ποῖος ποία ποῖον, πόσος πόση πόσον· εἰ ἄρα οὖν τὸ νῆϊς ποιεῖ οὐδέτερον τὸ νήϊον, δηλονότι οὐκ ἔστιν ἁπλοῦν ἀλλὰ σύνθετον
Translation (En)
You must know that some say that nēïs , which means "who does not know anything", therefore "ignorant", is a derived word, and that because of that it inflects through -dos as a derived word having a long penultimate syllable, for instance nēïdos, as in Callimachus (fr. 488) ‘ignorant (nēïdes) those who are not friends of the Muse’. Because they say that from neos "new, young", one derives *neïs, and through lengthening of the [e] into [ē] nēïs, because the ignorance of everything is characteristic of young people. But this is not exact: because it is not a simple word but a compound of the privative adverb nē- and the verb eidō which means "to know", as the one who is deprived of knowledge. And by the way it keeps the consonant of eidō in its declension, that is, the [d]. Why eidō is spelled with a diphthong [ei] and nēïs with [i], we will learn it in the <treatise on> Orthography, God willing. That nēïs cannot come from neos, so that we consider it a simple derived word, is shown by the neuter nēïon, because simple words in -is never have a neuter derivative, as ophis "snake", mantis "seer", polis "city", except tis "who?": the latter, as a mater of fact, has a neuter tí "what", since it is interrogative, and interrogative pronouns come in the three genders, as poios, poia, poion "of what kind?", posos, posē, poson "how big?"; so, if nēis has a neuter nēion, it is clear that it is not a simple word but a compound
Parallels
There is no parallel
Bibliography
On the etymology of νῆϊς, cf. C. Le Feuvre, « Qui n’entend point n’y entend rien : νῆϊς, -ιδος “ignorant” », in Ὀνομάτων ἵστωρ. Mélanges offerts à Charles de Lamberterie, éd. C. Le Feuvre, D. Petit. Louvain - Paris, Peeters, 2020, pp. 323–340: νῆΐς originally means "who has not heard of", it is a compound of ἀϝίω and goes back to *n̥-h2u̯is-. However, the relationship with ἀΐω was lost early on, and the word was remotivated in synchrony as belonging with οἶδα, which can be seen already in the Iliad.
Comment
This is the only witness of this etymology parsing the word as a derivative of νεός, implying a subsequent lengthening of the vowel and relying on the familiar alternation ε ~ η. Knowledge and old age are often associated in Greek thought (and more generally in popular wisdom), and, conversely, so are youth and ignorance. He who is νεός "young" is ipso facto νῆϊς "ignorant". Notice that this implies the meaning "young" and not the meaning "new" of νεός. The argument of the neuter νήϊον relies on a mistake: νήϊον in Homer means "of a ship" and is a derivative of ναῦς.