Ancient Greek

Alternative forms

• γνάμπτω ‎(gnámptō) Homeric, only in compounds in tmesis
• καμπύλλω ‎(kampúllō) Ionic

Verb

κάμπτω • ‎(kámptō)

1. I bend, curve
   • 800 BCE – 600 BCE, Homer, Iliad 4.486

     ὄφρα ἴτυν κάμψῃ περικαλλέϊ δίφρῳ

     in order that he might bend himself a felloe for a beauteous chariot

   1. (figuratively)
      • 522 BCE – 443 BCE, Pindar, Pythian Ode 2.51

        θεός, ὃ [...] καὶ ὑψιφρόνων τιν᾽ ἔκαμψε βροτῶν

        the gods, who [...] bend down many a man who is overly ambitious

      • 366 BCE – 348 BCE, Plato, Theaetetus 173.b

        τρεπόμενοι πολλὰ κάμπτονται καὶ συγκλῶνται

        so that they become greatly bent and stunted

2. (transitive, intransitive) I turn
   • 497 BCE – 405 BCE, Sophocles, Electra 744

     ἔπειτα λύων ἡνίαν ἀριστερὰν κάμπτοντος ἵππου

     But then he slackened his left rein while the horse was turning

   1. (figuratively)
      • 406 BCE, Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 91

        ἐνταῦθα κάμψειν τὸν ταλαίπωρον βίον

        there I should close my weary life

      • 423 BCE, Euripides, The Suppliants 748

        ἔχουσαι διὰ λόγου κάμψαι κακά

        though you might by parley end your ills

      • 5th century BC, Pherecrates, Collected Works 145.15
3. (nautical) I double (sail around)
   • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 4.42.4

     τρίτῳ ἔτεϊ κάμψαντες Ἡρακλέας στήλας ἀπίκοντο ἐς Αἴγυπτον

     it was in the third [year] that they doubled the pillars of Heracles and came to Egypt

Inflection

Derived terms

Related terms

References

• κάμπτω in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• κάμπτω in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• κάμπτω in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• «κάμπτω» 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
• «κάμπτω» in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• κάμπτω in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• “G2578”, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979