Terpsimbrotos is a type of linguistic compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

 (inflectional verbal compounds, German verbales Rektionskompositum), on a par with the bahuvrihi

Bahuvrihi

A bahuvrihi compound is a type of compound that denotes a referent by specifying a certain characteristic or quality the referent possesses. A bahuvrihi is exocentric, so that the compound is not a hyponym of its head...

 and tatpurusha 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 language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 example of such a compound, consisting of terpsi (either from terp-ti- or from terp-si-) "gladdens" and mbrotos "mortals" (c.f. ἀμβροσία [a-mbrosia

Ambrosia

In ancient Greek mythology, ambrosia is sometimes the food or drink of the Greek gods , often depicted as conferring ageless immortality upon whoever consumes it...

]); a terpsimbrotos is thus something or somebody that "gladdens mortals". The word appears in the Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

 and in the Homeric hymn to Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 as an epitheton of Helios

Helios

Helios was the personification of the Sun in Greek mythology. Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion, while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn...

.

Opinions as to what form exactly is reflected by this type of compounds are divided. Dunkel (1992) compares the Vedic

Vedic Sanskrit

Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...

 -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

Homeric Greek

Homeric Greek is the form of the Greek language that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in...

 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

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

 by Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

'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).