κλῆρος

Ancient Greek

Alternative forms

• κλᾶρος (klâros) — Doric

Etymology

Uncertain:

• Traditionally, from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂-, from *kelh₂- (“to hit, cut down”). Cognate with Latin clādes, Proto-Germanic *hultą (“wood, timber; copse, thicket”) (English holt), Old Irish caill (“forest, wood, woodland”), and maybe Albanian shul (“door latch”). Compare Ancient Greek κλᾰ́δος (kládos, “branch, shoot”) and κόλαφος (kólaphos, “hit, blow”, noun), which may or may not be derived from the same root.
• An alternative etymology links Proto-Celtic *klāros (“board, plank”) (whence Proto-Brythonic *klọr, Old Irish clár), from Proto-Indo-European *kléh₂ros, assuming the original meaning of the Greek word was “piece of wood for casting lots”. For this, the PIE root may be *kleh₂- (“to lay out, lay down, set, load, stow”), if not identical to the above.
• Beekes doubts these etymologies on purely semantic grounds and suggests a Pre-Greek origin.

Noun

κλῆρος • (klêros) m (genitive κλήρου); second declension (Epic, Attic, Ionic, Koine)

1. A lot
2. That which is assigned by lot, an allotment
3. A farm
4. An inheritance
5. The clergy

Declension

Second declension of ὁ κλῆρος; τοῦ κλήρου (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ κλῆρος ho klêros	τὼ κλήρω tṑ klḗrō	οἱ κλῆροι hoi klêroi
Genitive	τοῦ κλήρου toû klḗrou	τοῖν κλήροιν toîn klḗroin	τῶν κλήρων tôn klḗrōn
Dative	τῷ κλήρῳ tôi klḗrōi	τοῖν κλήροιν toîn klḗroin	τοῖς κλήροις toîs klḗrois
Accusative	τὸν κλῆρον tòn klêron	τὼ κλήρω tṑ klḗrō	τοὺς κλήρους toùs klḗrous
Vocative	κλῆρε klêre	κλήρω klḗrō	κλῆροι klêroi
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

• κληρωτήριον (klērōtḗrion)

Descendants

• Greek: κλήρος (klíros)
• → Latin: clērus (see there for further descendants)

Further reading

• “κλῆρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “κλῆρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “κλῆρος”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• κλῆρος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• κλῆρος in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• G2819 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.
  • allotment idem, page 25.
  • assignment idem, page 46.
  • cast idem, page 116.
  • estate idem, page 283.
  • inheritance idem, page 440.
  • lot idem, page 501.
  • portion idem, page 627.
  • property idem, page 653.
• “clerk”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.