''Terpsimbrotos'' is a type of linguistic compound (inflectional verbal compounds, German ''verbales Rektionskompositum''), on a par with the

bahuvrihi A ''bahuvrihi'' compound (from sa, बहुव्रीहि, tr=bahuvrīhi, lit=much rice/having much rice, originally referring to fertile land but later denoting the quality of being wealthy or rich) is a type of compound word that denotes ...

and

tatpurusha Sanskrit inherits from its parent, the Proto-Indo-European language, the capability of forming compound nouns, also widely seen in kindred languages, especially German, Greek, and also English. However, Sanskrit, especially in the later stages o ...

types. It is derived from a finite verbal phrase, the verbal inflection still visible at the juncture of the compound members. ''Terpsimbrotos'' (τερψίμβροτος) is itself a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

example of such a compound, consisting of ''terpsi'' (either from ''terp-ti-'' or from ''terp-si-'') "gladdens" and ''mbrotos'' "mortals" (cf. ἀμβροσία a-mbrosia''.html" ;"title="Ambrosia.html" ;"title="'Ambrosia">a-mbrosia''">Ambrosia.html" ;"title="'Ambrosia">a-mbrosia''; a ''terpsimbrotos'' is thus something or somebody that "gladdens mortals". The word appears in the ''Odyssey'' and in the Homeric hymn to Apollo as an epitheton of Helios. Opinions as to what form exactly is reflected by this type of compound are divided. Dunkel (1992) compares the Vedic Sanskrit, Vedic ''-si-'' imperatives, connected with the aorist system, apparently by haplology along the lines of ''vak-sa-si'' > ''vaksi''. ''Bē-t-harmōn'' (βητάρμων) "driving the wheel", a Homeric Greek, Homeric compound, was also postulated as a similar type of compound, though lacking the ''-i-'' of ''terpsimbrotos''. If correctly analysed, this would support the ''-ti-'' analysis of ''terpsi-''. Dunkel traces the origin of the ''pt-'' in πτόλεμος 'ptolemos''(vs. earlier πόλεμος 'polemos'' "war" to a re-analysis of such a compound, ''*phere-t-polemos'', metathesised to φερεπτόλεμος 'phere-ptolemos'' ''Phere-oikos'' (φερέοικος) "house-carrier", "carries-his-house", a term used for a

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class G ...

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet ...

's ''Works and Days'', is another Greek variant of the type, with a thematic ''-e-'' instead of the ''-si-''. At least synchronically, φερεπτόλεμος discussed above is also of this type.

Literature

*George Dunkel, "Two old problems in Greek: ptolemos and terpsimbrotos", ''Glotta'' 70 (1992). Indo-European linguistics Linguistic morphology Epithets of Helios {{Ling-morph-stub