περισπασμός

From περῐσπᾰ́ω (perispáō, “to wheel around”) +‎ -μός (-mós).

περῐσπᾰσμός • (perispasmós) m (genitive περῐσπᾰσμοῦ); second declension

1. wheeling around, spinning
   • 200 BCE – 118 BCE, Polybius, The Histories 10.23.3
   • 200 BCE – 118 BCE, Polybius, The Histories 12.18.3
2. (chiefly in the plural) distraction, distracting circumstances
   • Metrodorus, Papyrus Herculanensis 831.7
   • 200 BCE – 118 BCE, Polybius, The Histories 3.87.9
   • 110 BCE – 35 BCE, Philodemus, On Music p.98K
   • 46 CE – 120 CE, Plutarch, Moralia 2.831f
   • 200 BCE – 118 BCE, Polybius, The Histories 4.32.5
   • 36 BCE – 30 BCE, Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library 12.38
   • 279 BCE – 206 BCE, Chrysippus of Soli, Collected Works 3.77
   • 300 BCE – 200 BCE, Septuagint, Ecclesiastes 2.23
   • 108 CE, Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus 3.22.71
3. (grammar) circumflex accent
   • late 1st C. BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Περὶ Συνθέσεως Ὀνομάτων in The Critical Essays II (LCL 466, 1985), ch. xi, ¶ 4 (p. 80, ll. 15–16):

     τοῦ τε ‛κτυπεῖτε’ ὁ περισπασμὸς ἠφάνισται· μιᾷ γὰρ αἱ δύο συλλαβαὶ λέγονται τάσει.

     toû te ‛ktupeîte’ ho perispasmòs ēphánistai; miâi gàr hai dúo sullabaì légontai tásei.

     The circumflex accent on κτυπεῖτε has been eliminated, for the two syllables are uttered at the same pitch. ― translation from: Stephen Usher, op. cit. LCL 466 (1985), ch. xi, ¶ 4, p. 81, ll. 15–17

   • 50 CE – 250 CE, Apollonius Dyscolus, On Pronouns 34.24

• (distraction, distracting circumstances): περίσπᾰσις (períspasis)
• (circumflex accent): περίσπᾰσις (períspasis)

• Latin: perispasmus
  • English: perispasm

• “περισπασμός”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “περισπασμός”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• περισπασμός in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette