Hellas

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek Ἑλλάς (Hellás, “Greece”). Doublet of Ellada.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛləs

Proper noun

Hellas

1. Greece; (specifically) Ancient Greece.
   • 1999 March, Sean McMeekin, “The Place that Launched a Thousand Ships”, in Literary Review:

     Modern Greece would not be Byzantium reborn. Rather, it was an imagined nation conjured up from ancient Hellas.

Derived terms

• Helladic

Related terms

• Hellen
• Hellene
• Hellenic
• Hellenical
• Hellenically
• Hellenisation
• Hellenise
• Helleniser
• Hellenism
• Hellenist
• Hellenistic
• Hellenistical
• Hellenistically
• Hellenization
• Hellenize
• Hellenizer

 

Translations

Greek name for Greece

• Armenian: Հելլադա (Hellada)
• Carpathian Rusyn: Ела́да f (Eláda)
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 希臘／希腊 (yue) (hei¹ laap⁶)

  Eastern Min: 希臘／希腊 (Hĭ-lăk)

  Hakka: 希臘／希腊 (Hî-lia̍p)

  Hokkien: 希臘／希腊 (Hi-lia̍p)

  Mandarin: 希臘／希腊 (zh) (Xīlà)

  Wu: 希臘／希腊 (¹shi-laq)

• Czech: Helada f
• Danish: Hellas n (ancient Greece), Grækenland (da) n
• Esperanto: Helaso
• Finnish: Hellas (fi)
• French: Hellade (fr), Grèce (fr) f
• German: Hellas (de) n (poetic), Griechenland (de) n
• Greek: Ελλάδα (el) f (Elláda), Ελλάς (el) f (Ellás) (formal, literary, Katharevousa), Ελληνική Δημοκρατία f (Ellinikí Dimokratía)
• Italian: Grecia (it) f
• Latin: Hellas f, Graecia (la) f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: Hellas (no) n, Grekenland n (archaic)

  Nynorsk: Hellas (nn) n, Grekenland n (archaic)

• Portuguese: Hélade (pt) f
• Russian: Элла́да (ru) f (Elláda)
• Volapük: Grikän (vo)

Anagrams

• as hell

Czech

Proper noun

Hellas f (related adjective helladský)

1. Hellas (Greece, especially Ancient Greece)

   Synonym: Helada

Declension

Declension of Hellas (hard feminine irreg-stem)

	singular	plural
nominative	Hellas	Hellady
genitive	Hellady	Hellad
dative	Helladě	Helladám
accusative	Helladu	Hellady
vocative	Hellado	Hellady
locative	Helladě	Helladách
instrumental	Helladou	Helladami

Related terms

• See Helén

Further reading

• “Hellas”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “Hellas”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989

Latin

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek Ἑλλάς (Hellás).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈhel.las/, [ˈhɛlːʲäs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈel.las/, [ˈɛlːäs]

Proper noun

Hellas f sg (genitive Helladis); third declension

1. (poetic) Synonym of Graecia (“Greece”).
2. a female given name from Ancient Greek.
   • 65 BCE – 8 BCE, Horace, Satires 2.3.276:

     Modo, inquam, Hellade percussa Marius cum praecipitat se cerritus fuit?

     The other day, for instance, when Marius killed Hellas and then flung himself headlong, was he crazy?

Declension

Third-declension noun, singular only.

	singular
nominative	Hellas
genitive	Helladis
dative	Helladī
accusative	Helladem
ablative	Hellade
vocative	Hellas

Descendants

All borrowings:

• → French: Hellade
• → Portuguese: Hélade
• → Spanish: Hélade

References

• “Hellas”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Hellas in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette, page 739.
• Hellas in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 1, Hahnsche Buchhandlung
• “Hellas”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

Directly borrowed from Greek Ελλάς (Ellás, “Greece”), possibly being influenced by Ancient Greek Ἑλλάς (Hellás, “Greece”), in 1932 to replace the Danish loanword and German cognate Grekenland as part of a trend to adopt endonyms as Norway was nation-building during the early 20th century and as a compromise during the early stages of the Norwegian language conflict, with Nynorsk and Samnorsk advocates rejecting the existing name and Grekerland, a calque of Swedish Grekland, only working in Bokmål (where Greek is greker, being grekar instead in Nynorsk). In the 1970s, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry attempted to reverse the name change to be more similar to other European countries. Although this movement gained enough momentum to make it to the Language Council of Norway, it was rejected by a majority of the Council.

Proper noun

Hellas n

1. Greece (a country in Southeast Europe)

Related terms

• gammelgresk
• greker
• gresk
• hellener
• hellensk

See also

• Greeklish

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

See #Etymology_2.

Proper noun

Hellas n

1. Greece (a country in Southeast Europe)

Related terms

• grekar
• gresk
• hellenar
• hellensk