ἵμερος

The old connection with Sanskrit ईष्म (īṣma, “spring; a god of love”), which belongs to इच्छति (icchati, “to desire, wish”), may be semantically possible, but it leaves the secondary suffix -ερο- (-ero-) unexplained. Another proposal by Bally assumed a reconstruction *si-smer-o-, by comparison of Avestan 𐬵𐬌𐬱𐬨𐬀𐬭𐬀𐬥𐬙‎ (hišmarant, “well conducted”) to Sanskrit स्मरति (smarati, “to remember, call to mind”). As remarked by Weiss, the problem with these proposals is that they lead to expect Aeolic Greek *ἵμμερος (*hímmeros), while it is consistently found ἵμερος (hímeros) in Sappho and Alcaeus. Weiss convincingly derives this word from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂y- (“to tie, bind”) instead: he reconstructs a heteroclitic *seh₂i-mr̥, *sh₂i-men-, with a suffix *-mer/n- also found in τέκμαρ (tékmar) and ἦμαρ (êmar); he also compares αἵμων (haímōn, “eager”). This means that originally this word meant "bond, spell".

ῑ̔́μερος • (hī́meros) m (genitive ῑ̔μέρου); second declension

1. yearning, longing
2. desire, love

• Greek: ίμερος (ímeros)

• “ἵμερος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ἵμερος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “ἵμερος”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891) A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• ἵμερος in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• ἵμερος in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924) A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• “ἵμερος”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • affection idem, page 16.
  • desire idem, page 215.
  • glow idem, page 363.
  • longing idem, page 498.
  • love idem, page 502.
  • lust idem, page 505.
  • meek idem, page 522.
  • passion idem, page 597.
  • pining idem, page 613.
  • wistfulness idem, page 983.
  • yearning idem, page 995.
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN