Ancient Greek

Adverb

πάλαι • ‎(pálai)

1. (of a point in the past)
   1. long ago, in days past
   2. Of past time closer to the present: before, earlier, a while ago
      • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Cr. 43.b

        Σωκράτης: ἄρτι δὲ ἥκεις ἢ πάλαι;
        Κρίτων: ἐπιεικῶς πάλαι.

        Socrates: Did you arrive just now or a while ago?
        Crito: Quite a while ago.

   3. with a present-tense verb since a point in the past, for a long time
      • 386 BCE – 367 BCE, Plato, Meno 93.b

        τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν ὃ πάλαι ζητοῦμεν ἐγώ τε καὶ Μένων.

        This is what Meno and I have been trying to figure out for a while.

Derived terms

• παλαιός ‎(palaiós, “old”)

References

• πάλαι in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• πάλαι in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• πάλαι in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• «πάλαι» in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• Bauer, Walter et al. (2001) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Third edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
• «πάλαι» in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• πάλαι in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• “G3819”, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English-Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • ago idem, page 19.
  • anciently idem, page 29.
  • before idem, page 69.
  • formerly idem, page 339.
  • long idem, page 498.
  • one idem, page 573.
  • past idem, page 597.
  • purify idem, page 658.
  • yore idem, page 997.