The corpus record

εἰρων-εύομαι

eironeuomai

feign ignorance

Generated live from the audited corpus — every figure on this page is a database query, not prose from memory.

Where it lives

Apology 1 · 1.14/10k
Gorgias 2 · 0.76/10k
Sophist 1 · 0.62/10k
Symposium 1 · 0.57/10k
Cratylus 1 · 0.56/10k
Rhetoric 1 · 0.23/10k
Nicomachean Ethics 1 · 0.18/10k
Politics 1 · 0.15/10k
Republic 1 · 0.11/10k

What it meant

εἰρων-εύομαι · eirōn-euomai — LSJ

feign ignorance, banter, dissemble, shuffle

feign ignorance, so as to perplex, Arist. Rh. 1379b31; πρός τινα Pl. Cra. 384a; πρὸς ὑμᾶς αὐτούς Din. 2.11; banter, Arist. Pol. 1275b27: generally, dissemble, shuffle, Ar. Av. 1211, Pl. Ap. 38a, D. 60.18.

2 employ understatement

employ understatement, Polystr. p.15 W.

II treat with sarcasm

trans., treat with sarcasm, τινά Him. Ecl. 1.13.

In the wild

εἰρωνευόμενοι · eirōneuomenoi Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1127b (DIORISIS sentence 1466)
εἰρωνευόμενος · eirōneuomenos Aristotle, Politics 1275b (DIORISIS sentence 910)
εἰρωνευομένοις · eirōneuomenois Aristotle, Rhetoric 2
εἰρωνευομένῳ · eirōneuomenōi Plato, Apology 38
εἰρωνεύεταί · eirōneuetai Plato, Cratylus 384 (DIORISIS sentence 10)
εἰρωνεύου · eirōneuou Plato, Gorgias 489

6 of 10 attestations shown. Ask for more.

Where it came from

No etymology authority pointer is recorded for this lemma yet — an honest gap, not an omission. The etymological dictionaries (Beekes, Chantraine, Frisk) are matched incrementally.

Ask the librarian

Ask about εἰρων-εύομαι →