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From οἶνος(oînos, “wine”) + -οψ(-ops) ( connected to ὄψ(óps, “eye; face”)).
In Mycenaean Greek Linear B, 𐀺𐀜𐀦𐀰(wo-no-qo-so) (KN Ch 1015)[1] and 𐀺𐀜𐀦𐀰𐀤(wo-no-qo-so-qe) (KN Ch 897)[1] (a name of a bull, perhaps connected to the use of bullshead rhytons to contain ritual wine) is taken to be the same term.[2]
(Homericepithet of the sea or cattle)an epithet traditionally rendered as "wine-dark" and taken to mean wine-colored and hence dark, reddish (as the sea at sunset), bluish (like some wines), or purplish
For Agamemnon son of Atreus himself had given strong-benched ships for crossing the wine-dark sea, since they weren't interested in the work of the sea.
As when a man longs for supper who all day has had two wine-dark oxen pulling a crafted plow through fallow land, ... so it was welcome for Odysseus that the sun's light set.
Since it is used of the sea at sunset, some scholars think this word meant deep red,[3][4] but others are sceptical that Homer meant the sea or oxen were red/wine-colored.[2] Some speculate Homer may have had blue wine, but the word is elsewhere used of oxen.[4] Eleanor Irwin suggested it indicated a dark surface reflecting light like wine in a goblet.[5] Michael Clarke suggested it was meant to evoke not just the appearance of wine but its effects (e.g., when Achilles is at the "wine-dark" sea, he is intoxicated with grief).[4]
For other hypotheses ― such as the geology of the Peloponnesus sea being filled with minerals that would raise the pH of diluted (as was Greek custom) wine to appear more bluish, and well as romantic notions of how the Greeks saw color — see Wine-Dark Sheep: Ancient Color in a Modern Greek Odyssey by Alana R. Benson.
Note that Moses of Chorene (5th c.) quotes an Armenian legend of the 'Birth of Vahagn' from the 'purple sea', ծով(cov)ծիրանի(cirani).
^ Edzard Visser, Homer 1977–2000, in Lustrum Band 56: 2014 edited by Marcus Deufert, Michael Weißenberger
↑ 4.04.14.2Shane Butler, Alex Purves, Synaesthesia and the Ancient Senses (→ISBN, 2014)
^ Eleanor Irwin, Colour terms in Greek poetry (→ISBN, 1974), page 28: The epithet οἶνοψ in Homer's oft-quoted "wine-dark" sea also describes cattle (Od. 5.132). We may well wonder what point of comparison exists between wine and water and also between wine and cattle. The author inclines to the view that a dark surface reflecting light is in all cases being described. Wine in the ancient world was seen, not through glass as in modern times, but in an opaque crater or cup. It was the surface that caught the eye. Similarly the sea viewed from land or shipboard may, under appropriate weather conditions, appear dark with reflected lights. In the case of cattle, too, the surface, i.e. hide, may be dark and glossy.
