Graecity

See also: Græcity

English

Alternative forms

• Græcity, Grecity
• Also with initial lower-case g.

Etymology

An adaptation of the Late Latin Graecitās (“the Greek language”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹiːsɪtɪ/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɡɹiːsɪti/

Noun

Graecity (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Adoption of Greek naming and/or the Greek language.
   • 1845, O.T. Dobbin (tr.), D. Diodati (aut.), “Dominici Diodati I. C. Neapolitani, De Christo Græce Loquente Exercitatio” in The Biblical Repository and Classical Review, Third Series: № I (Whole Number: LVII), art. vii, § 8, 175:

     The territory and towns of Judæa…from the period of the Maccabees dated the era of their Græcity (suam receperunt Græcitatem).

2. Greek (especially linguistically Greek) character or style.
   • 1969, Journal of Tamil Studies, I, № 1, 57:

     [Hebrew] now possesses a series of prefixes to translate such elements as mono-, di-, tri-, sur-, sub-, inter-, etc., partly even simulating the Latinity or Graecity of the European morphemes by using Aramaic elements.

   • 1995, J. Høyrup, As Regards the Humanities…, page 11:

     The overall climate of the Old Babylonian scribe school was as repressive as that seventeenth to nineteenth century Latin school which inculcated “Latinity” or “Graecity” into the sore backs of future priests and officials.

   • 1998, R. Kuin, Chamber Music, e.n. 24 to ch. 2, 247:

     The k in skope is in effect a marker of graecity, and as such conserves the original Greek seme of sight.

   • 2006, R.S. Price, chapter X, in Homeric Whispers, page 235:

     A revised understanding of the Iliad and Odyssey…raises two…inescapable questions, namely: first, how did these works come into the Hellenic World? and, second, how did these works…become the very quintessence of Graecity?

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Graecity.
3. (collectively) Greek texts and other language materials, regarded as a corpus.
   • 2013, J. Kramer, “The ancient languages of Greek and Latin”, in Dictionaries: An International Encyclopedia of Lexicography • Supplementary Volume, pt VII, ch. xxxviii, § 4.4.2, 629/2:

     Special areas of the Greek lexicon were worked on by specialists; the graecity treated was exactly described: the complete lexicon of Greek, including inscriptions and papyri until and including the sixth century AD, was to be recorded.

   • ibidem, 630/2:

     When it will be finished, the DGE will be the largest and most reliable dictionary of antique graecity.

Translations

adoption of Greek naming and/or the Greek language

(linguistically) Greek character or style

Greek texts and other language materials, as a corpus