αὐτός

Ancient Greek

Alternative forms

• ἀϝτός (awtós) — Cretan
• αὑτός (hautós) — crasis with ὁ (ho)
• αὐτοσί (autosí) — emphatic

Etymology

According to Beekes from a Proto-Indo-European *h₂ew (“again”) + *to- (“that”). Risch derives it from the Ancient Greek reflexes of those words, αὖ (aû, “back, again, other”) +‎ τόν (tón, “the”). Related to Phrygian αυτος (autos), thus probably representing a common innovation.

Pronunciation

• Audio (Classical Attic): αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό

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Pronoun

αὐτός • (autós) (feminine αὐτή, neuter αὐτό); first/second declension

1. (without article) self
   1. (in nominative, emphasizing the subject)
   2. (reflexive pronoun, in oblique cases) himself, herself, itself, themselves
   3. (in philosophy, of an abstract idea) by or in itself
2. (without article, in oblique cases, 3rd person personal pronoun) he, she, it, they
3. (with definite article) same

Usage notes

The intended sense of αὐτός is generally defined by its grammatical context. When used as a lone nominal without an article, it is generally the third person personal pronoun. When appended to a nominal and not possessing the definite article it is "self". When combined with the definite article, either appended to a nominal or on its own, it is "same".

The neuter plural ταὐτά (tautá, “the same things”) (derived from τὰ αὐτά by crasis) is distinguished from ταῦτα (taûta) "these things" by the accent placement. The two sometimes occur together:

Inflection

Derived terms

Descendants

• Greek: αυτός (aftós)
  • → Turkish: aftos
• Mariupol Greek: тос (tos), ато́с (atós)

Further reading

• “αὐτός”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “αὐτός”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “αὐτός”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• αὐτός in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• αὐτός in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• αὐτός in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (2006–2024)
• “αὐτός”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• G846 in Strong, James (1979) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
• αὐτός in Trapp, Erich, et al. (1994–2007) Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gräzität besonders des 9.-12. Jahrhunderts [the Lexicon of Byzantine Hellenism, Particularly the 9th–12th Centuries], Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • abstract idem, page 4.
  • himself idem, page 400.
  • myself idem, page 549.
  • oneself idem, page 574.
  • person idem, page 608.
  • personally idem, page 608.
  • self idem, page 750.
  • singly idem, page 779.
  • thyself idem, page 873.
  • yourself idem, page 997.
• Herbert Weir Smyth (1920) A Greek grammar for colleges. American Book Company.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), volume I, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 173
• Ernst Risch (1937) Wortbildung der homerischen Sprache. Berlin. 314.