"Good" in Greek ?

Greek Learning Greek
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Another question for this day:

What does “good” mean in Greek ? Why are so many translations of “good” in Greek like eu, agathos, ethlos or kalos ?

Is there any difference in the use or does each one have a specia connoation ?

For example hasana in Arabic (like in names Hassan, Hussein, etc.) means beautiful & nice (referring to the idea that something beautiful must be good). And it’s similar to the Greek word “kalos”, in my opinion at least. But what’s with the other “good” ones ?

“Eu” seems to be a strange word, I just found it in the word left “euoumunos” literally “with a good omen”.

If anyone can tell me something about the usage or ethmology of each of these words, it would be really kind, but speculators are also invited to discuss this stuff.

Thank you very much.

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They all have different connotations, on the other hand, they can also be used interchangebly. There is also a matter of dialect, and poetry will be looser than prose, but I won’t go into that now.

Given that, I’ll give a rough outline of what the nuances are, but keep in mind that I am most familiar with Homeric Greek.

eu - this is the one which is most likely to be used as an adverb and as a prefix in a compound word, but is rarely (if ever) used as a stand alone adjective. It’s probably the most general in meaning. I don’t have my dictionary which has a nice catalogue of Indo-European roots at hand - but I am almost certain that “eu” is a basic I-E word with cognates in other I-E languages.

agathos - this is often translated as “brave” - which it does mean, but it also means reliable, competent, high quality, basically, what you look for in a prospective employee (or, in ancient times, a warrior). I do not know anything about the etymology.

esthlos - this is the one you are most likely to see in the context of “good vs. evil” (in other words, when ethics are involved), though the other words for “good” might appear in that context as well. It can also mean reliable and competent, and shares a lot of territory with agathos. After all, in ancient times, a ship which was shoddily built was quite evil (kakh in Greek, which is the feminine of kakos) since it could cause a lot of grief, even though we don’t think of it that way now.

kalos - this does generally mean “good” as in “beautiful” and “nice” - indeed, there is no other word which means “beautiful” which is used as frequently as the English word - but I have also seen it in contexts where it means “reliable” (as in, not likely to turn traitor), and it is somewhat interchangeable with the other words for good.

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Yes; it’s from *h1(e)su-, which apparently was originally a suffixed form of *h1es- (to be).

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“eu-” is cognate with sanskrit “su-” from the root that hypatia mentioned. why is something that exists good? i couldn’t tell you. but the participle of the verb for to be (“as”) in sanskrit can be used as an adjective to mean good.

not all of the words are used with the same frequency in the same dialect. esthlos is an epic/poetic/herodotean word (pindar uses the doric form eslos, i think). i wouldn’t be surprised if esthlos, too, was related to the verb “to be.” agathos is pretty standard attic. kalos usual refers to physical beauty, which was usually inseparable from moral goodness (kalos kagathos is the fixed phrase for “a good guy”). euonymos literally means “having a good name,” hence “of good omen,” but i’ve only seen it as a euphemism (there’s another one for you) for “left” (i.e. the ill-omened hand). actually, the left is usually referred to as aristoteros, “better” (or “bester,” if you prefer), another euphemism. aristos comes from a common IE root meaning “good” (or “shining,” i don’t really know) and it’s cognate with aryan (what the vedic people of india called themselves) and iran.