158 Walter Petersen, 



in CIG. 5072 'Eyw liA/co [iaTiAiT/.o? ^ No'jjjaScov xat o7.o)v Toiv AJOw- 

 TTojv. . . . ors b(z^(rfd[i:f^'j '^y.<jOirr/\rjz\. naidiOKi^ : r^ zaTc, probably she 

 who is ' approximately a child, but not quite ' because too old,'- 

 originally ' a young girl,' ' maiden.' Cf. Phiyn. 239 (Lobeck) 

 TzaiSic"///) • TOUTO l~\ TTj; O-spazaivY]^ 01 vuv TiOiaTiv " ol Bs ap/alot sTri 

 Trj.; veaviBo?, oT? axoVj'jOrjTsov. In this original meaning Ar. Ach. 

 1148 xaO-£'JBsiv Metoc -aiBt-rxTj^^ (^jpaioTaTT,?. Xen. An. 4. 3. 11 xa- 

 Ti5ot£v . . . YspovTa ts xai YuvoTxa xa\ ;:aiB['7xac. Even of a young 

 wife Plut. Cic. 41. Usually specialized to ' servant ' or ' prostitute.' 

 The former probably is to be compared with the similar use of 

 Engl. ' girl,' and is not a faded hypocorism, since r r.'xXc, in the 

 meaning ' servant ' as presupposed is late and rare. ::aiBi'7XY] as 

 ' servant ' e. g. Lys. frg. 51 ; Isae. 6. 19, 8. 35 sti Bs (sc. r/ixrr,- 

 To) avBpa7:oBa [j.i(rO'OcpopoLivTa xai Btjo b'zpcciztxwccc, xat TcaiBiov.TjV. Also 

 Insc. Delph. CB. 2001. 4, 2071. 4. The meaning ' prostitute ' e. g. 

 Her. I. 93 ; Din. i. 23 ; Ath. 437 F ^po; tjcc Br,[j.oc7iac tlrrr^zi t.xi- 

 BiGv.ac aBiaoopo)?. This specialization may be due either to the in- 

 fluence of the deterioratives or hypocoristic words in the suffix. 

 naidtdicog* : 6 r.cdc, he who is ' approximately a child, but not quite,' - 

 ' a youth,' ' lad ' (cf. xaiBi'TXY]). The passage which best shows its 

 meaning is Xen. Hell. 5. 4. 32 ogzic, [jIvzoi r.cdc, ts wv xai TzaiBtcr/.o; 

 xai Tjijoiv xavTa toc xaloc 7cot,wv BistsT^so-s, /oCkz^hy sTvai TOtooTov avBpa 

 ar^ox-ivvjvai. The position between xaT? and ^(^pwv in a series in 

 which the emphasis is on remaining good all through life shows 

 that an intermediate age is meant, so that 7:aiBii7xoc is virtually equiv- 

 alent to pipaxiov or our ' lad.' Ar. Eccl. 1146 Ka^.sTv yspovTa, 



1 One can hardly make much of the passage. It is doubtful whether the 

 the Nubian ' kingling ' knew the emotional value of the Greek word he used. 



2 If nniSLaxog and naiSiaxri were formed with the notion ' too old or too 

 large to be properly called child ' they contain the roots of an amplificative 

 meaning. This is, however, not at all certain; for comparison of the German 

 ' das junge Madchen ' Engl. ' young girl ' shows that there may have been a 

 real diminutive idea, in as much as e. g. a girl may have been conceived of as 

 being young not in comparison with other girls, but with the age of normal 

 adult women. 



^ With a hypocoristic shade, cf. § 81. 



* That Tiaidiaxos is so much rarer than nctidiaxri seems to be due to the fact 

 that for a 3'outh who had reached manhood it was customary to use vtayiag or 

 veaviaxog, while the feminine nctiSiaxri did service for that age as well as the 

 younger one of the ^eiqa^. Wackernagel at first (Glotta 2. 6 ff.) maintained 

 that nauUexog, where found in Attic, was a Laconism, but later (Glotta 2. 315) 

 retracted in view of its occurrence in Aristophanes. 



