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Headword: Aaptos
Adler number: alpha,5
Translated headword: irresistable, invulnerable
Vetting Status: high
Translation:
[Meaning someone/something] unharmed.
Herodianus[1] says about a)/aptos that it comes from i)a/ptw ['I harm'], and after adding alpha-privative and dropping the 'i' [it becomes] a)/aptos, "whom no one can harm." Or perhaps the 'a' is not to be taken as negative but as intensifying, so it would be "one who has great power to harm." Thus the first has a passive sense, the second an active. With the negative prefix it also means "one who is untouched."[2]
Greek Original:
Aaptos: ablabês. Hêrôdianos phêsi peri tou aaptos, hoti gignetai apo tou iaptô to blaptô, kai meta tou sterêtikou a kai kat' elleipsin tou i aaptos, hon oudeis dunatai blapsai. ê ouchi kata sterêsin eklêpteon to a, alla kat' epitasin, hin' êi ho megala dunamenos blaptein. hôste to men prôton dêloi pathos, to de deuteron energeian. legetai de kai aaptos kata sterêsin ho apsaustos.
Notes:
This form of the headword, the nominative singular masculine/feminine, is unattested outside lexicography; however, plural forms occur frequently in hexameter poetry, in the formula xei=res a)/aptoi or xei=ras a)a/ptous (usually interpreted as 'irresistable hands'); e.g. Homer, Iliad 8.450 (web address 1).
[1] The etymological comments that follow occur only in mss G (= Parisinus 2623) and T (= Vaticanus 881); cf. Herodianus 3.2.30.
[2] This etymology, alpha-privative + a(/ptomai ('touch'), is the one most commonly accepted nowadays. See LSJ s.v. (web address 2) and Schwyzer, DGE. Yet there is reason for doubt, and the correct Homeric form (attested already by Aristophanes of Byzantium) may actually be a)ept-. See Chantraine s.v. a)/aptos.
Reference:
P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque, ed. 2 Paris 2009.
Associated internet addresses:
Web address 1,
Web address 2
Keywords: definition; dialects, grammar, and etymology; epic; poetry
Translated by: Anne Mahoney on 21 August 1998@16:48:12.
Vetted by:
William Hutton (Raised status; cosmetics) on 16 October 2000@15:10:37.
David Whitehead (added keyword; cosmetics) on 23 April 2002@07:40:44.
David Whitehead (betacoding and other cosmetics) on 9 November 2005@09:16:30.
William Hutton (Augmented notes, cosmetics, added keywords and links, set status) on 19 August 2007@18:31:56.
William Hutton (typo) on 20 August 2007@04:20:04.
William Hutton (augmented notes, tweaked headwords) on 20 August 2007@08:59:16.
Jennifer Benedict (cosmetics, consistency) on 25 March 2008@00:11:12.
Catharine Roth (cosmetics) on 16 December 2011@23:59:48.
David Whitehead (cosmetics) on 18 December 2011@10:14:21.
David Whitehead (cosmetics; note typo) on 2 April 2015@08:36:40.
Catharine Roth (added bibliography) on 25 January 2024@00:59:21.

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