σφήν

Ancient Greek

Etymology

Unknown. According to Beekes, related neither to Sanskrit स्फ्य (sphya, “oar; spar”) nor to Proto-Germanic *spēnuz (“chip, shaving”).

Pronunciation

 

• IPA^(key): /spʰɛ̌ːn/ → /sɸin/ → /sfin/

• (5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /spʰɛ̌ːn/
• (1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /spʰe̝n/
• (4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /sɸin/
• (10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /sfin/
• (15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /sfin/

Noun

σφήν • (sphḗn) m (genitive σφηνός); third declension

1. wedge, one of the simple machines

Declension

Third declension of ὁ σφήν; τοῦ σφηνός (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	ὁ σφήν ho sphḗn	τὼ σφῆνε tṑ sphêne	οἱ σφῆνες hoi sphênes
Genitive	τοῦ σφηνός toû sphēnós	τοῖν σφηνοῖν toîn sphēnoîn	τῶν σφηνῶν tôn sphēnôn
Dative	τῷ σφηνῐ́ tôi sphēní	τοῖν σφηνοῖν toîn sphēnoîn	τοῖς σφησῐ́ / σφησῐ́ν toîs sphēsí(n)
Accusative	τὸν σφῆνᾰ tòn sphêna	τὼ σφῆνε tṑ sphêne	τοὺς σφῆνᾰς toùs sphênas
Vocative	σφήν sphḗn	σφῆνε sphêne	σφῆνες sphênes
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Derived terms

• ἀντισφήν (antisphḗn)
• ἐπίσφηνος (epísphēnos)
• σφηνάριον (sphēnárion)
• σφηνεύς (sphēneús)
• σφηνίσκος (sphēnískos)
• σφηνοειδής (sphēnoeidḗs)
• σφηνοκέφαλος (sphēnoképhalos)
• σφηνόπους (sphēnópous)
• σφηνοπώγων (sphēnopṓgōn)
• σφηνόω (sphēnóō)
• σφήνωσις (sphḗnōsis)

Descendants

• Greek: σφήνα (sfína)

References

• “σφήν”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “σφήν”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “σφήν”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• σφήν 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
• “σφήν”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• G3816 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.
  • wedge idem, page 971.
• Vasmer, Max (1964–1973) “σφήν”, in Oleg Trubachyov, transl., Этимологический словарь русского языка [Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language] (in Russian), Moscow: Progress
• University of Helsinki's Proto-Indo-European Lexicon