The Lexicon of Hesychius of Alexandria is an alphabetical glossary of rare words, compiled in Greek in the fifth or sixth century CE. In his prefatory letter Hesychius names the lexicon of Diogenianus as his chief source. Most entries are brief: a word followed by its equivalent in ordinary Greek, sometimes with the author or the dialect it comes from. The letters A to O make up its first half; P to Ō form the second.
The words come from Homer, lyric, tragedy and comedy, with lost plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles among the works cited. Dialect forms are marked as Laconian, Elean, Cypriot or Paphian, and some words are given as Egyptian, Lydian, Thracian or Chaldaean. There are entries on festivals, proverbs, places and coins, and, among later additions, Hebrew names and words from the Bible. Alpha is the largest letter.
The lexicon survives in a single damaged manuscript of the fifteenth century, now in Venice, and in shortened form: many entries were cut down, and others were added from later glossaries.
Hesychius the Alexandrian Lexicon Alpha–Omicron: summary and contents (PDF)
Hesychius the Alexandrian Lexicon Alpha–Omicron: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Α Letter Alpha
Alpha, the largest letter of the lexicon, opens with a note on the senses of a itself, as a wish, a privative, an intensive and a copulative, with examples from Callimachus and Homer. Short glosses follow, many marked by dialect, from Laconian adda onward, and further in stand anaxyrides, the barbarian trousers, and anapaista, the songs of a chorus's parabasis. Among the last words, in aō-, are the Aoian gods brought to Samothrace and aōtos, the flower of wool.
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Β Letter Beta
Words for babbling and outcry, babazein and babai, stand at the head of Beta, with dialect glosses such as babakoi, which the Eleans used for cicadas and the people of Pontus for frogs. Among the bl- words are blēchē, the bleating of sheep, and blimazein from Aristophanes' Birds. Near its close bōmolochos is explained from lurking at altars, and bōrmos is the dirge for Bormus, a Mariandynian taken by the nymphs.
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Γ Letter Gamma
Gamma's first glosses include gangamon, a net, and Gadeira, the island beyond the Pillars of Heracles once called Cotinussa, with its salted fish. The owl gets a cluster of entries of its own, as bird, dance and Athenian tetradrachm, with the proverb about taking owls to Athens and the owls of Laurium in Aristophanes. The Gyrae rocks near Myconos and gōrytos, a quiver, are the last glosses.
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Δ Letter Delta
Helen's address to Hector illustrates daēr, a husband's brother, among the early glosses of Delta, beside the torch-words daidouchos and daidouchia. The dia- compounds fill its middle, including diatrochades, a kind of poem recorded by Praxiphanes, and diatramis. Gifts and giving take up the closing entries, with dōrodokos and the robe the Persian king bestowed, and Lycambes appears as Dōtadēs, son of Dotes.
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Ε Letter Epsilon
The pronoun he opens Epsilon, then the several uses of ea, before heanos, the fine robe Homer gives to women, and ear, which in Cyprus meant blood. Among the compounds in ex- are the sailors' cry "Away, Glaucus" in a storm and exōmis, the garment that served as both tunic and cloak. Near the end come heōlokrasia, the stale mixture the Athenians poured over those who could not stay awake through an all-night vigil, and heōsphoros, the morning star.
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Ζ Letter Zeta
Zagreus, the chthonic Dionysus born of Zeus and Persephone, and Zalmoxis, whom, Herodotus says, the Greeks of the Pontus called a former slave of Pythagoras, are the names of note in this short letter, which starts from za- as an intensive prefix. At the Thesmophoria zēmia is a sacrifice, and in Thracian zilai is wine. Girdle words close Zeta: Zōstēr as a title of Apollo at Athens, and zōropotai, drinkers of unmixed wine.
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Η Letter Eta
A grammarian's account of ē, ē, hē and hēi, sorted by breathing and accent, heads Eta, followed by hēbē, youth and the goddess Hebe, wife of Heracles. The hēmi- words give measures and fractions, and there the medimnos is reckoned at forty-eight choinikes. Echo is defined as sound thrown back from hard surfaces, and the final entry, ēōs, is illustrated from Homer.
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Θ Letter Theta
Seats and rowers lead Theta's first glosses: thakos, a seat, and the rowers of a trireme, the thalamios at the lowest oar, the zygios in the middle and the thranitēs at the top. Further on are hunting words and Thērikleios, a cup named after the potter Thericles. The thōs, a beast like a wolf, is glossed twice at the close, where Aeschylus's Net-Haulers and Sisyphus and Sophocles' Little Dionysus are cited.
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Ι Letter Iota
Hebrew names sit among the Greek words of Iota: ia is glossed as the Hebrew name of God, James and John are the Boanerges, and later come Joel and Jonah. Iakchos is the Dionysus of the Mysteries and the song the initiates sing. Cypriot and Paphian forms such as impataon appear among the im- words, and the Ionians, mocked in comedy for softness, are glossed at its end.
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Κ Letter Kappa
The Cabeiri, worshipped on Lemnos as sons of Hephaestus, appear early in Kappa, among many Laconian and Paphian forms that follow kaartias, a frog. The ki- words include kibdēlos, base metal and so anything false, kibōrion as an Egyptian word for a cup, and kidaris, the royal cap also called a tiara. Last are the kō- words, kōtilos and kōphos, and kōcheuousin, quoted from Sophocles' Camicians.
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Λ Letter Lambda
The prefix la-, of size and excess, comes first in Lambda, which then glosses labros and its family and applies labyrinthos to a man who talks in circles. Mid-letter come Lechaeum, the port of Corinth where runaway slaves fled, and the Leocorion, the monument to the daughters of Leos in the Ceramicus. The final glosses give lōtos as fruit, pipe, tree and the food of the Lotus-eaters, and lōphan, to rest.
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Μ Letter Mu
Homer's oath particle ma heads Mu, followed by musical terms: the magadis, cited from Ion's Omphale, and the bridge of the cithara. It glosses the Magnesian stone, which it sets apart from the iron-drawing Heraclean stone, and the Magnes throw at dice, before a long run of compounds in meta-. Blame and folly, mōmos and mōros, close the letter, with Lydian and Egyptian words for earth and water.
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Ν Letter Nu
The nabla, a stringed instrument, the Nazirite and the Naiads come first in Nu, with a cluster of oath formulas built on nai. The ship words nēes and nēion stand beside Nēith, the Egyptian name of Athena, and nēdymos, Homer's word for sleep, with its rival reading. Nu ends with nōta, including the back of the sea, and nōchelēs, sluggish.
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Ξ Letter Xi
Xi opens on wool, beasts and strangers: xainein, carding, the xandaros, an ox-like creature of the Atlantic, the Xanthica, a Macedonian festival purifying the army, and words for guest and guide. It explains xymboloi as omens from sneezes, dedicated to Demeter, or, after Philochorus, as divination by chance words that Demeter discovered, citing Sophocles' Gathering of the Achaeans. Near its end come xystis, a tragic robe, and xystos, the covered track where athletes trained.
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Ο Letter Omicron
The article ho and its grammatical uses head Omicron; then come oaristys and related words for intimate talk, with Homeric examples, and obolostatēs, a moneylender who weighed out his loans. The middle gives the many senses of hopla and hoplē. The section closes on words in ops-, opson and opsōnion, and a run of articled phrases such as ho ōgygios and ho ōn, glossed as God, ever living.