ἤπειρος

• ᾱ̓́πειρος (ā́peiros) — Doric
• ἄπερρος (áperrhos) — Aeolic

From Proto-Hellenic *ā́peřřos, from Proto-Indo-European *Heh₂per- (Beekes) or *h₂eh₁/h₂per-io- (Kroonen). Cognates include Proto-Germanic *ōferaz and possibly Old Armenian ափն (apʻn); see those for more. If the appurtenance of Armenian is accepted, we may be dealing with a heteroclitic r/n-stem.

According to Specht apud Olsen, this Indo-European root is a vrddhi derivative from the etymon of Sanskrit अपर (ápara, “posterior, later, latter”).

In relation with al. Ufer, asaj. ōfer 'firm land'

ἤπειρος • (ḗpeiros) f (genitive ἠπείρου); second declension

1. mainland, land
   • c. 750 BCE – 650 BCE, Hesiod, Theogony 189:

     κάββαλ᾽ ἀπ᾽ ἠπείροιο πολυκλύστῳ ἐνὶ πόντῳ

     kábbal’ ap’ ēpeíroio poluklústōi enì póntōi

     He threw them down from the land into the stormy sea

2. The mainland of Greece
3. continent
4. inland areas (as opposed to coastal areas)

• ἤπειρόνδε (ḗpeirónde)
• Ἤπειρος (Ḗpeiros)
• ἠπειρώτης (ēpeirṓtēs)

• Greek: ήπειρος (ípeiros)
• → English: eperopolis

• “ἤπειρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940), A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “ἤπειρος”, in Liddell & Scott (1889), An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “ἤπειρος”, in Autenrieth, Georg (1891), A Homeric Dictionary for Schools and Colleges, New York: Harper and Brothers
• ἤπειρος in Bailly, Anatole (1935), Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette
• ἤπειρος in Cunliffe, Richard J. (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect: Expanded Edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, published 1963
• Woodhouse, S. C. (1910), English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language‎^[1], London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited.
  • continent idem, page 168.
  • epirus idem, page 279.
  • land idem, page 475.
  • mainland idem, page 508.
• Kroonen, Guus (2013), “*ōf(e)ra-”, in Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 11)‎^[2], Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 394
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), “ἤπειρος”, in Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), volume I, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 523
• Olsen, Birgit Anette (1999), The noun in Biblical Armenian: origin and word-formation: with special emphasis on the Indo-European heritage (Trends in linguistics. Studies and monographs; 119), Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, page 136
• Pokorny, Julius (1959), “āpero-”, in Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 1, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 53