Classical Confusion: TLG vs. LSJ (abstract)

by Edwin D. Floyd

After preliminary mention of some examples from English and Sanskrit of the way in which standard dictionaries can occasionally present a confusing idea of word-usage, this presentation will concentrate on the Greek word apenes (ἀπηνής). I will claim that the definitions given in Liddell-Scott-Jones ("ungentle, rough, hard, cruel") do not adequately convey an important connotation of the word. Perusal of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (available online to the Pitt community) reveals an important additional connotation, viz., "savage, inhuman, animal-like".

Besides specific passages in lexicographers and scholiasts, in which exactly this meaning for apenes (ἀπηνής) is given, this connotation, "savage, inhuman, animal-like", is also appropriate in various well known passages such as Iliad 1.339-340. In this passage, the sequence of "gods - men - apeneos (ἀπηνέος) Agamemnon" is more pointed if the adjective indicates something subhuman, rather than merely "ungentle, rough, hard", as LSJ indicate.

In connection with my discussion of TLG, I will attempt to give pointers on the use of this extremely powerful and important resource, and also to answer questions concerning its use.


Note that a problem with the internet, which has not yet been fully solved, is the representation of Greek and other non-Latin scripts. Unicode is one way of doing this, and the preceding abstract uses this method of encoding the Greek word apenes in various forms. Unicode, though, still produces some unexpected results. You should not be too alarmed, then, if the material in parentheses, which is supposed to be Greek, is not adequately represented by your browser.

If you are not familiar with the use of Unicode in connection with Greek, a good place to start is Sean Redmond's Greek Font to Unicode Converter.