Διόνῡσος

Διόνῡσος

Grammatical information: m.

Meaning: N. of a god (Il.).

Other forms: Dial. Διώνυσος (ep. lyr.), Διόννυσος (Thess. Cret.), Ζόννυσος (Aeol.), ΔιΕνυσος (Amorgos), Δεύνυσος (Anacr.). Hypoc. voc. Διονῦ (Phryn. Com. 10); cf. διον(ν)ύς ὁ γυναικίας καὶ παράθηλυς H., EM; διοννύς ἡ γυναικεία καὶ θῆλυς ἐσθής (Eust.).

Dialectal forms: Myc. δι-wo-nu-so-jo gen.? \/Diwonusoio\/. Cf. Here also Hallager et al. 1992 and 1997 dat. diwonuso.

Derivatives: Διονύσιος, PN, with the fem. Διονυσιάς; pl. n. τὰ Διονύσια `the feast for D.' (Att. etc.) with Διονυσιακός (Th.); Διονυσίσκος, dimin., denom. of a person, with bone-like grows on the temples (medic.); denomin. διονυσιάζω `feast the D.' (Luc. u. a.) with Διονυσιασταί m. pl. name of the D.-worshippers (Nisyros etc.; cf. Άπολλωνιασταί s. Άπόλλων).

Origin: PG [a word of Pre-Greek origin]

Etymology: From *Διοσ-νυσος, Schwyzer 283). Dionysos would have come from Thrace. His father would be Zeus, his mother Σεμέλη (s. v.). As the first member seemed the gen. of the Thracian Zeus, Kretschmer (Einleitung 241f.) assumed in the second member a Thracian word for `son' (found in Thracian names like Νῦσα; further Νῦσαι, Νύσιαι the nymphs, who cared for him) and Nusatita (PN). This interpretation, however, finds no support (s. on νυός). Dunkel, FS Strunk, 1995, 1-21, assumed i.a. that the name contains *suHnu- `son', of which s and n were metathesized. This is, however, improbable. Fur. 250 recalls the PN Διονυτᾶς (beside -σᾶς on a coin from Teos; G. Meyer, Gr. Gramm. (1896) 381) and stresses that the variation τ\/σ points to a non-IE = Pre-Greek word. Attempts to find an IE etym., then, have failed and we have to accept that it is a foreign name. On Dionysos Nilsson Gr. Rel. 1, 564ff.