πῦρ

See also: πυρ

Ancient Greek

Etymology

From Proto-Hellenic *pāwər, from Proto-Indo-European *péh₂wr̥. The noun was changed to a pure R-stem noun; if it retained the oblique N-stem forms of its ancestor, its oblique base would have been *pun- (written *πυν-).

Cognates include Old English fȳr (English fire), Old Armenian հուր (hur), Hittite 𒉺𒀪𒄯 (paḫḫur), Tocharian A por, and Tocharian B puwar. Compare Mycenaean Greek 𐀢𐀏𐀺 (pu-ka-wo /⁠pur-kawos⁠/, “fire-kindler”), Etruscan 𐌅𐌄𐌓𐌔𐌄 (verse).

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /pŷːr/ → /pyr/ → /pir/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /pŷːr/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /pyr/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /pyr/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /pyr/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /pir/

Noun

πῦρ • (pûr) n (genitive πῠρός); third declension

1. a fire
   1. a funerary fire
   2. a sacrificial fire
2. lightning
3. a fever

Usage notes

Not used in plural, but there is a related second-declension plural noun πῠρᾰ́ (purá, “watchfires”); distinguish this from the first-declension noun πῠρᾱ́ (purā́, “funeral pyre”).

Declension

Third declension of τὸ πῦρ; τοῦ πῠρός (Attic)

Case / #	Singular
Nominative	τὸ πῦρ tò pûr
Genitive	τοῦ πῠρός toû purós
Dative	τῷ πῠρῐ́ tôi purí
Accusative	τὸ πῦρ tò pûr
Vocative	πῦρ pûr
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Third declension of πῦρ; πῠρός (Epic)

Case / #	Singular
Nominative	πῦρ pûr
Genitive	πῠρός purós
Dative	πῠρῐ́ purí
Accusative	πῦρ pûr
Vocative	πῦρ pûr
Notes:	Dialects other than Attic are not well attested. Some forms may be based on conjecture. Use with caution.

Related terms

• ζᾰ́πῠρος (zápuros)
• ἰσόπῠρον (isópuron)
• κεβλήπῠρῐς (keblḗpuris)
• πῠρᾱ́ (purā́)
• πυράζω (purázō)
• πυρακτέω (puraktéō)
• πυραυγής (puraugḗs)
• πύραυνος (púraunos)
• πῠ́ρδᾰλον (púrdalon)
• πυρία (puría)
• Πυριλάμπης (Purilámpēs)
• πυριφεγγής (puriphengḗs)
• πυρίφλογος (puríphlogos)
• πυριφόρος (puriphóros)
• πυρκαϊά (purkaïá)
• πυρρός (purrhós)
• πύρωμα (púrōma)
• ὑπόπῠρος (hupópuros)

 

Descendants

• Greek: πυρ (pyr)
• English: pyro-

Further reading

• “πῦρ”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “πῦρ”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “πῦρ”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• πῦρ in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• Bauer, Walter et al. (2001) A Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
• πῦρ in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• “πῦρ”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• G4442 in Strong, James (1979) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎^[1], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • blaze idem, page 82.
  • conflagration idem, page 159.
  • fire idem, page 322.
  • flame idem, page 325.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 1260-1
• “πῦρ”, in ΛΟΓΕΙΟΝ [Logeion] Dictionaries for Ancient Greek and Latin (in English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese), University of Chicago, since 2011