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εὔχεσθαι, αὐχή and αὐχεῖν

Posted: October 23rd, 2015, 9:54 am
by cwconrad
The current thread on"Turning Greek Prayers into Prayers in Greek" viewtopic.php?f=47&t=3375&sid=25b299f8b ... a585fedaefι prompts me to raise a question I've long pondered without satisfaction: the standard phrasing for "prayer" in ancient Greek is εὐχή, εὔχεσθαι, the standard NT verb being προσεύχεσθαι. The primary sense of εὐχή/εὔχεσθαι is "pray" but εὑχεσθαι also may be used in the sense of "boast" or "assert forcefully (about oneself)" Another lexical pair is αὐχή/αὐχεῖν, which carries the meaning, "boast, preen oneself." I'm not away of other cognates of either of these groups, but I do wonder whether there's an etymological link between them.