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