Ancient Greek

Alternative forms

• ἐπῐλάζῠμαι ‎(epilázumai)

Verb

ἐπῐλαμβᾰ́νω • ‎(epilambánō)

1. I take or get besides
   • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Politics 1259.a.28

     ἀλλ᾽ ὅμως ἐπὶ τοῖς πεντήκοντα ταλάντοις ἐπέλαβεν ἑκατόν

     but all the same he took a hundred talents besides his capital of fifty

   1. I take, receive
2. I lay hold of, seize, attack
   • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 8.115.3

     ἐπιλαβὼν δὲ λοιμός τε τὸν στρατὸν καὶ δυσεντερίη κατ᾽ ὁδὸν ἔφθειρε.

     Moreover, pestilence and dysentry laid hold of them among their way, from which they died.

   1. (of events) I overtake, surprise; I befall
      • 460 BCE – 395 BCE, Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 4.27.1

        καὶ ἐδεδοίκεσαν μὴ σφῶν χειμὼν τὴν φυλακὴν ἐπιλάβοι

        and feared lest winter should overtake them in their siege

   2. I reach
      • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Anabasis 6.5.6

        ἔθαπτον τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ὁπόσους ἐπελάμβανεν ἡ στρατιά

        and then in the same way they buried all that the army reached

   3. I seize, stop
      • 388 BCE, Aristophanes, Plutus 703

        τὴν ῥῖν᾽ ἐπιλαβοῦσ᾽

        stopping her nose

   4. I occupy
      • 428 BCE – 347 BCE, Plato, Laws 779.c

        καὶ ὅπως ἰδιώτης μηδεὶς μηδὲν τῶν τῆς πόλεως [...] ἐπιλήψεται

        and prevent any private person from encroaching on State property [...]

   5. (with genitive) I undertake
      • 175 CE – 235 CE, Claudius Aelianus, On the Nature of Animals 5.18
      • 175 CE – 235 CE, Claudius Aelianus, On the Nature of Animals 13.19
   6. (intransitive) I succeed, follow
      • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Problems 860.a.7
3. (middle voice, with genitive) I hold on by, lay hold of, catch at
   • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 6.113.2

     καὶ ἐπελαμβάνοντο τῶν νεῶν

     and [they] laid hold of the [Persian] ships

   • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 6.114

     ἐπιλαμβανόμενος τῶν ἀφλάστων νεός, τὴν χεῖρα ἀποκοπεὶς πελέκεϊ πίπτει

     his hand cut off with an ax as he held on by the ship's figurehead

   • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 6.91.2

     ἐπιλαμβανόμενος δὲ τῶν ἐπισπαστήρων εἴχετο

     he laid hold of the door handles and clung to them

   1. I attack
      • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Hellenica 4.2.22

        ἐπελάβοντο δὲ καὶ Κορινθίων ἀναχωρούντων.

        The Lacedaemonians also attacked the Corinthians as they were returning.

   2. I arrest, seize
      • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Demosthenes, Against Apatourius 9

        ὁ Παρμένων ἐξαγομένων τῶν παίδων ἐπιλαμβάνεται

        Parmeno [...] seized the slaves as they were being taken away

   3. I get hold of, obtain
      • 484 BCE – 425 BCE, Herodotus, 1 127.1

        μέν νυν προστάτεω ἐπιλαβόμενοι ἄσμενοὶ ἐλευθεροῦντο

        and now having got a champion they were glad to win their freedom

   4. I reach (a place)
      • 46 CE – 120 CE, Plutarch, Mark Antony 41

        ἐκέλευε φεύγειν ἐν δεξιᾷ τῶν ὀρῶν ἐπιλαβόμενον

        and urged him in his flight to keep close to the hills upon his right

   5. I touch on
      • 380 BCE, Plato, The Republic 449.d

        ἐπειδὴ ἄλλης ἐπιλαμβάνῃ πολιτείας

        since you are beginning on another constitution

   6. I interrupt
      • 385 BCE – 380 BCE, Plato, Symposium 214.e.μεταξὺ ἐπιλαβοῦ, ἂν βούλῃ

        have the goodness to interrupt me

      1. I object to
         • 430 BCE – 354 BCE, Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.32

           ὅτι μόνος ἐπελάβετο ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ [...] ψηφίσματος

           because he was the one man who in the Athenian assembly had opposed the decree [...]

Inflection

Derived terms

• ἀντεπῐλαμβᾰ́νομαι ‎(antepilambánomai)
• προσεπῐλαμβᾰ́νω ‎(prosepilambánō)
• σῠνεπῐλαμβᾰ́νω ‎(sunepilambánō)

Related terms

References

• ἐπιλαμβάνω in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ἐπιλαμβάνω in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• «ἐπιλαμβάνω» 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
• “G1949”, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible, 1979