θαλλός

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Ancient Greek

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Etymology

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From Proto-Indo-European *dʰelh₁- (to bloom, be green), whence also θάλλω (thállō, to bloom). Compare Welsh dail (leaves) and Middle Irish duille (foliage). The sense gift comes about as a semantic loan from Egyptian, where two etymologically unrelated terms mnḥ (papyrus stalk) and mnḥtj (tribute, gift) were homophonous in Late Egyptian.[1]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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θᾰλλός (thallósm (genitive θᾰλλοῦ); second declension

  1. (botany) young shoot, young branch (especially of the olive)
    Synonyms: ἔρνος (érnos), ὄρπηξ (órpēx), πτόρθος (ptórthos), τέρχνος (térkhnos)
  2. (in the plural) palm leaves, which were plaited into baskets
  3. a gift, especially one given at festivals, or given to a landlord by one whose bid for a lease was accepted

Inflection

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • Greek: θαλλός (thallós)
  • English: thallus
  • Italian: tallo
  • Sicilian: taḍḍu

Further reading

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  1. ^ Derchain, P. (1955) “Une origine égyptienne de l’emploi du mot θαλλός = ‘cadeau’ dans les papyrus grecs d’Égypte?” in Chronique d’Égypte volume 30, pages 324–326