ἄνθραξ

Ancient Greek

Etymology

Quite uncertain; Strong's Concordance calls it a "prim word". Possibly from a Mediterranean substrate; compare Old Armenian անթայր (antʻayr, “spark; anthrax”), անթեղ (antʻeł, “hot coal, ember”).

Others have connected the word to Old Norse sintr, German Sinter (“sinter”), English sinder (“cinder, ashes, slag”), all from *sindrą (“dross, cinder, slag”), and via Proto-Indo-European *sendʰro- (“coagulating fluid, scale, cinder”) cognate to Old Church Slavonic сядра (sjadra, “lime cinder, gypsum”) (compare Serbo-Croatian sadra, Czech sádra). Kölligan suggests a connection to Sanskrit अन्ध (andha, “blind, darkness, etc.”).

Pronunciation

Noun

ἄνθραξ • (ánthrax) m (genitive ἄνθρακος); third declension

1. charcoal
2. a deep red precious stone, a carbuncle
3. an abscess, a boil, a carbuncle

Inflection

Derived terms

Descendants

• → Czech: anthrax
• → English: anthrax, anthracite, anthracene
• → French: anthrax
• → German: Anthrax
• → Greek: άνθρακας (ánthrakas), άνθραξ (ánthrax)
• → Dutch: antrax
• → Serbo-Croatian: антракс
• → Translingual: Anthrax
• → Old Georgian: ანთრაკი (antraḳi)

Further reading

• “ἄνθραξ”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ἄνθραξ”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ἄνθραξ 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
• ἄνθραξ in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (2006–2024)
• G440 in Strong, James (1979) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • carbon idem, page 113.
  • charcoal idem, page 125.
  • coal idem, page 140.