ἆρα

• ἦ ῥᾰ (ê rha) – Homeric

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

ἆρᾰ • (âra) (interrogative particle)

1. interrogative particle, introducing a yes-no question, and often indicating impatience or anxiety
   1. (in a main clause)
   2. (in a subordinate clause)
2. (in poets, sometimes equivalent to ἄρα (ára))

ἆρα has no single translation when it introduces a main-clause question. English, instead of beginning yes-no questions in an interrogative, begins them in a verb, either the auxiliary used in the non-question form of the sentence, or a form of do:

• He can do it > Can he do it?
• He did it > Did he do it?

ἆρα simply serves as a marker of a yes-no question, as the verb at the beginning of the sentence does in English:

• ποιῆσαι δύναται > ἆρα ποιῆσαι δύναται
• ἐποίησεν > ἆρ’ ἐποίησεν

• “ἆρα”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ἆρα”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ἆρα in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• ἆρα in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (2006–2023)
• “ἆρα”, in Slater, William J. (1969) Lexicon to Pindar, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter
• G687 in Strong, James (1979) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910) English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • after idem, page 17.
  • all idem, page 22.
  • so idem, page 790.
  • then idem, page 865.