-ίτης

Ancient Greek

Alternative forms

-ῖτις (-îtis) – feminine

Etymology

Back-formation from πολῑ́της (polī́tēs), from πόλις (pólis, “city”) +‎ -της (-tēs). The ῑ from the stem of πόλις became part of the suffix: πολῑ́-της was reanalyzed as πολ-ῑ́της (pol-ī́tēs).

Pronunciation

(5^th BCE Attic) IPA^(key): /ǐː.tɛːs/
(1^st CE Egyptian) IPA^(key): /ˈi.te̝s/
(4^th CE Koine) IPA^(key): /ˈi.tis/
(10^th CE Byzantine) IPA^(key): /ˈi.tis/
(15^th CE Constantinopolitan) IPA^(key): /ˈi.tis/

Suffix

-ῑ́της • (-ī́tēs) m (genitive -ῑ́του); first declension

Suffix forming a masculine noun: one connected to, a member of; one from a particular place (demonym)

Usage notes

Originally forming generic adjectives, such as ὁπλ-ίτης (hopl-ítēs, “one with armour, hoplite”) from ὅπλον (hóplon, “large shield”); πολ-ίτης (pol-ítēs, “one from the city, citizen”) from πόλις (pólis, “city”).

But by the Hellenistic period, both the masculine -ίτης (-ítēs) and the feminine -ῖτις (-îtis) became very productive in forming technical terms for products, diseases, minerals and gems (adjectives with elliptic λίθος (líthos, “stone”)), ethnic designations and Biblical tribal names. These technical uses survive in modern languages in Greek loanwords for diseases (in -itis), for minerals (in -ite) and for nations, tribes or religious sects (plurals in -ites), partly also in common nouns such as hermit.

Declension

First declension of -ῑ́της; -ῑ́του (Attic)

Case / #	Singular	Dual	Plural
Nominative	-ῑ́της -ī́tēs	-ῑ́τᾱ -ī́tā	-ῖται -îtai
Genitive	-ῑ́του -ī́tou	-ῑ́ταιν -ī́tain	-ῑτῶν -ītôn
Dative	-ῑ́τῃ -ī́tēi	-ῑ́ταιν -ī́tain	-ῑ́ταις -ī́tais
Accusative	-ῑ́την -ī́tēn	-ῑ́τᾱ -ī́tā	-ῑ́τᾱς -ī́tās
Vocative	-ῖτᾰ -îta	-ῑ́τᾱ -ī́tā	-ῖται -îtai
Notes:	This table gives Attic inflectional endings. For declension in other dialects, see Appendix:Ancient Greek dialectal declension.

Descendants

Latin: -ītēs

References

Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920), “Part III: Formation of Words”, in A Greek grammar for colleges, Cambridge: American Book Company, § 843