νῆσος

• νῆσσος (nêssos) — Attic
• νᾶσος (nâsos) — Doric
• νᾶσσος (nâssos) — Rhodian

Uncertain. Has traditionally been connected with νήχω (nḗkhō, “I swim”) from Proto-Indo-European *(s)neh₂- (“to flow, to swim”). If its meaning “island” has developed from a more original meaning “headland, cape”, it may be, like Proto-Germanic *nasją (“foothill; headland, cape”) and Bulgarian нос (nos, “nose; cape, promontory”), a derivation from Proto-Indo-European *néh₂s (“nose”); in more landsman environments, compare the developments of Minaean 𐩱𐩬𐩰 (ʾnf, “wall of a city”) from “nose” and Arabic جَزِيرَة (jazīra, “island”) apparently from “bridge”.

However, in that case, the origin of -s-, which is not usually preserved in Greek, remains to be explained, possibly requiring a borrowing from another Indo-European language (though Furnée suspects a Pre-Greek origin, and Beekes Aegean).^[1]

νῆσος • (nêsos) f (genitive νήσου); second declension

1. island

• → Coptic: ⲛⲏⲥⲟⲥ (nēsos)
• → English: Austronesia, Indonesia, Macaronesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia
• Greek: νήσος (nísos), νησί (nisí)
• → Latin: nēsus

• “νῆσος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940), A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “νῆσος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889), An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “νῆσος”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891), A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• νῆσος in Bailly, Anatole (1935), Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• νῆσος in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• Furnée, Edzard Johan (1972), Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen (Janua linguarum. Series practica; 150) (in German), The Hague and Paris: Mouton, page 387
• G3520 in Strong, James (1979), Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910), English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎^[1], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited, page 460
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910), English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎^[2], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • island idem, page 460.