Thursday, March 19, 2026

Greek Proverbs: March 19

Here are today's Greek proverbs with LOLCats! These are repeats of previous proverbs, but now with illustrations (and there are always more proverbs at the blog):

Πᾶσιν ἁρμόζου.
Accommodate yourself to everyone/everything.
This is one of the so-called Delphic maxims recorded by Stobaeus. Note the middle/passive imperative: ἁρμόζου. The Greek word has a wonderfully wide range of metaphorical uses which you can see in the LSJ dictionary entry.



Ἰατρὸς νόσου ὁ ὕπνος.
Sleep is the doctor of sickness.
In other words: get some sleep — you'll feel better! The words are adapted from a fragment of Sophocles. From root of the Greek word ἰατρός, we get a variety of English compound words formed with -iatric: pediatric, geriatric, etc. Compare a similar saying you saw earlier at this blog: Ὕπνος δὲ πάσης ἐστὶν ὑγιεία νόσου.



Ἐξ ὄνυχος τὸν λέοντα.
By the claw (you know) the lion.
The idea is that you can recognize someone by a specific trait or feature, although it might be very small; a lion is very big, but his claw is very small. Plus lions, like other cats, often keep their claws hidden... you might not recognize the lion until it is too late!



Τὸ φῶς ἡλίῳ δανείζεις.
You're loaning light to the sun.
This is another proverb about acting both foolishly and presumptuously: the sun doesn't need any light from you! From Greek φωτο- we get a huge number of English photo- words, and from ἥλιος we get English helium and also heliotrope. For more about the sun god Ἥλιος, see Wikipedia: Helios.



Φίλοις βοήθει.
Help your friends.
This is one of the so-called Delphic maxims recorded by Stobaeus. Notice that the verb βοηθέω takes a dative complement: φίλοις.


And to finish up, here's a random proverb and a random LOLCat too:




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