The corpus record

σᾰφην-ής

saphenes

plain truth

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

Where it lives

Persians 1 · 1.96/10k
Prometheus Bound 1 · 1.7/10k
Trachiniae 1 · 1.38/10k
Histories 3 · 0.16/10k

What it meant — LSJ

plain truth

= σαφής, A. Pers. 635 (lyr.), 738 (troch.), S. Tr. 892; τὸ σ. the plain truth, Pi. O. 10(11).55: σαφήνη is corrupt in A. Ch. 197, cf. foreg. Adv. -νῶς Thgn. 963 (but -νέως is the better reading); Ion. -νέως Hdt. (who never has the Adj.), with the Verbs εἰπεῖν, λέγεσθαι, ἐξαγγέλλεσθαι, 1.140, 3.122, 6.82; τὰ λοιπά σοι φράσω σ. A. Pr. 781.

In the wild

σαφηνὴς · saphēnēs Aeschylus, Persians 738
σαφηνῶς · saphēnōs Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 780–781
σαφηνέως · saphēneōs Herodotus, Histories 1.140.1 (DIORISIS sentence 1016)
σαφηνέως · saphēneōs Herodotus, Histories 3.122.3 (DIORISIS sentence 3802)
σαφηνέως · saphēneōs Herodotus, Histories 6.82.1 (DIORISIS sentence 6655)
σαφηνῆ · saphēnē Sophocles, Trachiniae (DIORISIS sentence 454)

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.

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