Ancient Greek

Alternative forms

• ἄρρην ‎(árrhēn) Attic
• ἄρσης ‎(ársēs) Laconian
• ἔρσην ‎(érsēn) Aeolic, Cretan, Epidaurian, Herodotus
• ἄρσηνος ‎(ársēnos)

Adjective

ᾰ̓́ρσην • ‎(ársēn) m, f ‎(neuter ᾰ̓́ρσεν); third declension (Epic, Ionic, Tragic)

1. male
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 8.7

     μήτέ τις οὖν θήλεια θεὸς τό γε μήτέ τις ἄρσην πειράτω διακέρσαι ἐμὸν ἔπος

     Let no god, neither female nor male, essay to thwart my word.

2. masculine, manly, strong
   • 408 BCE, Euripides, Orestes 1204

     ὦ τὰς φρένας μὲν ἄρσενας κεκτημένη, τὸ σῶμα δ᾽ ἐν γυναιξὶ θηλείαις πρέπον

     O you that have a masculine spirit, though your body shows you to be a woman!

3. (of plants) coarse, tough
   • 497 BCE – 405 BCE, Sophocles, Women of Trachis 1196

     πολλὴν μὲν ὕλην τῆς βαθυρρίζου δρυὸς κείραντα, πολλὸν δ᾽ ἄρσεν᾽ ἐκτεμόνθ᾽ ὁμοῦ ἄγριον ἔλαιον

     There hew the wood of deeply-rooted oaks and slash the trunks of wild tough olive trees.

4. (grammar) masculine
   • 423 BCE, Aristophanes, The Clouds 682

     ἔτι δή γε περὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων μαθεῖν σε δεῖ, ἅττ᾽ ἄρρεν᾽ ἐστίν, ἅττα δ᾽ αὐτῶν θήλεα

     You must learn one thing more about names, what are masculine and what of them are feminine.

Inflection

Derived terms

Related terms

• ἀνήρ ‎(anḗr, “male”)

Synonyms

• ἀρσενικός ‎(arsenikós), ἀρρενικός ‎(arrhenikós)
• ἀρσενογενής ‎(arsenogenḗs)

Antonyms

• θῆλυς ‎(thêlus)

References

• ἄρσην in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ἄρσην in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ἄρσην in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• «ἄρσην» 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
• «ἄρσην» in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• «ἄρσην» in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (© 2006–2016)
• “G730”, 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.
  • male idem, page 510.
  • masculine idem, page 516.
  • sex idem, page 759.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill