Sunday, November 28, 2010

Confirming our definition of παῖς (pais)

I came across the following discussion about παῖς by Theon. The surrounding context is Theon's advice for clarity in writing. One of the things to avoid is the use of homonyms. On this topic, he penned,
A homonym is a single word pronounced in the same way but with different significations, like pais ("boy"); for it means a son and a young child and a slave.1
There we have it. These meanings are the same as those found in our current Greek lexicons. While this is not groundbreaking, I, nonetheless, find such discoveries interesting.
1. Kennedy, George, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), p. 31.

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