anabasis

English

WOTD – 4 June 2011

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀνάβασις (anábasis, “a going up, an ascent”), from ἀναβαίνω (anabaínō), from ᾰ̓νᾰ- (ana-, “up”) + βαίνω (baínō, “to go”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /əˈnæbəsɪs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Noun

anabasis (plural anabases)

1. (historical) A military march up-country, especially that of Cyrus the Younger into Asia.
   • 1838, Thomas de Quincey, The Avenger:

     During the French anabasis to Moscow he entered our service, made himself a prodigious favorite with the whole imperial family, and even now is only in his twenty−second year.

   • 1989, Anthony Burgess, Any Old Iron:

     ‘I have a feeling that if we follow a scent of spring on the air with sufficient eagerness we’ll come to a south without snow more quickly than we think. Thalassa, thalassa. This is what the Greeks called an anabasis.’ They looked at him as if he were barmy.

   • 1989, Frederic Stewart Colwell, Rivermen, page 47:

     The Wordsworthian journey to the source […] is more of an amble than an anabasis or strenuous heroic quest.

2. (obsolete) The first period, or increase, of a disease; augmentation.

Antonyms

• catabasis, katabasis

Translations

military march up-country

• Czech: anabáze (cs) f
• German: Anabasis f
• Japanese: アナバシス (anabashisu)
• Occitan: anabasi f
• Portuguese: anábase (pt) f
• Russian: ана́басис m (anábasis) (historical, literature), марш (ru) m (marš), похо́д (ru) m (poxód)
• Serbo-Croatian: anabaza (sh) f
• Spanish: anábasis f

Further reading

• “anabasis”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “anabasis”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

Latin

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀνάβασις (anábasis).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /aˈna.ba.sis/, [äˈnäbäs̠ɪs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /aˈna.ba.sis/, [äˈnäːbäs̬is]

Noun

anabasis f (genitive anabasis); third declension

1. a plant: horsetail (Equisetum arvense)
   • Naturalis Historia, Liber I.XXVI. 77 - 78.Gaius Plinius Secundus:

     hippuris sive ephedron sive anabasis quae equisetum

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Pliny the Elder to this entry?)

Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

	singular	plural
nominative	anabasis	anabasēs
genitive	anabasis	anabasium
dative	anabasī	anabasibus
accusative	anabasem	anabasēs anabasīs
ablative	anabase	anabasibus
vocative	anabasis	anabasēs

References

• “ănăbăsĭs”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ănăbăsis in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 121/2.
• “anabasis”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “anabasis” on page 125/3 of the Oxford Latin Dictionary (1st ed., 1968–82)