ῥάφανος

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Ancient Greek

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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The formation is similar to other plant names, such as λάχανον (lákhanon), πήγανον (pḗganon) and πύανος (púanos). Since the word is widespread only in Europe, and since it has variant forms, it cannot be an inherited word from Indo-European, but must have been borrowed instead, or otherwise belong to a substrate. Latin rāpum (turnip), Old High German ruoba (turnip, rape) and Lithuanian rope (turnip) point to a pre-form *rāp-; beside this we find Old High German raba and Proto-Slavic *rěpa (turnip), which point to *rēp-. In Greek we find also ῥάπυς (rhápus) and ῥάφυς (rháphus, turnip). Since the variation "π/φ" and the suffix "-αν-" are evidently Pre-Greek features, the word may originally be of substrate stock; thence the European cognates cited above were borrowed.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ῥάφᾰνος (rháphanosf (genitive ῥαφᾰ́νου); second declension

  1. cabbage (Brassica cretica)

Inflection

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • Latin: raphanus (see there for further descendants)
  • Translingual: Raphanus

Further reading

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