ἶρις

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See also: ίρις and Ἶρις

Ancient Greek

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Originally with an initial digamma, as *ϝῖρις (*wîris); further origin uncertain. The traditional etymology, from Proto-Indo-European *wih₁-r- (a twist, thread, cord, wire) (compare English wire, Swedish vira (to twist), Welsh gŵyr (bent)), from *weyh₁- (to turn, twist, weave, plait), is suspicious on account of the irregular variation between ⟨ε⟩ and ⟨ι⟩ as well as the suffix -ις (-is), -ιδος (-idos). Furthermore, even the derivation of *ϝῖρ- (*wîr-) seems phonetically improbable given the modern reconstruction of the root as *weh₁-y-. Thus, Furnée and Beekes argue for Pre-Greek origin.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ἶρις (îrisf (genitive ῑ̓́ρῐδος); third declension

  1. rainbow
  2. halo
  3. various species of the genus Iris

Declension

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Derived terms

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References

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  1. ^ Furnée, Edzard Johan (1972) Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen (Janua linguarum. Series practica; 150) (in German), The Hague and Paris: Mouton, page 356
  2. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) “ἶρις, -ιδος”, in Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 598
  3. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014) “ἶρις, -ιδος”, in Stefan Norbruis, editor, Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 48

Further reading

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