ὀμφαλός

Ancient Greek

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-European *h₃m̥bʰ-l̥-, from *h₃nebʰ- (“navel, center”). Cognates include Sanskrit नभ्य (nabhya), Latin umbilīcus, and Old English nafola (English navel).

Pronunciation

Noun

ὀμφᾰλός • (omphalós) m (genitive ὀμφᾰλοῦ); second declension

1. (anatomy) navel
2. umbilical cord
3. anything shaped like a navel, hence:
   1. knob or boss in the middle of the shield
   2. button or knob on the horse's yoke to fasten the reins to
   3. plug or valve closing the outlet of bath
   4. (in the plural) knobs at each end of the stick round which books were rolled
4. centre or middle point
5. (botany) centre of a plant, containing the seed vessel
6. centre of an army, properly the point at which an army is divided into two wings
7. (architecture) keystone of an arched vault
8. (at Corycus) vault, tomb

Inflection

Derived terms

Descendants

• Greek: αφαλός m (afalós), ομφαλός m (omfalós, “navel”)

Further reading

• “ὀμφαλός”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ὀμφαλός”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “ὀμφαλός”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• ὀμφαλός in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• ὀμφαλός in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• “ὀμφαλός”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• ὀμφαλός 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.
  • boss idem, page 90.
  • centre idem, page 122.
  • middle idem, page 527.
  • navel idem, page 552.
  • waist idem, page 959.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN