Missing Parenthesis in Trenchard

[Danny King]

Trenchard, when giving English glosses for a verb, usually uses a parenthesis to explain the usage for glosses after a semicolon:
νομίζω - I think, believe, suppose; am the custom (pass)

But for this next word, someone seems to have forgotten the parenthesis:
ξηραίνω - I dry; dry up, wither, stop, become stiff
What should the word in the missing parenthesis be: middle, passive or intransitive?

[Stephen Hughes]

νομίζω - I think, believe, suppose (act.); am the custom (pass)
ξηραίνω - I dry (trans.); dry up, wither, stop, become stiff (intr.)

[Danny King]

Thank you, Stephen.

[Danny King]

Of the 15 times ξηραίνω appears in the NT, 10 times are in the form ἐξηράνθη. Of these,
1) 7 refer to trees or plants or branches withering or drying up (Matt 13:6, 21:19, 21:20, Mk 4:6, Lk 8:6, Jn 15:6, 1Pet 1:24),
2) 1 refers to the healed woman's blood drying up (Mk 5: 29),
3) 1 refers to water drying up (Rev 16:12) and
4) 1 seems to refer to the ripening of the harvest, which appears to stretch the word's lexical range.

Anyway, it may be a safer bet to take the word in the missing parenthesis as passive.

[Stephen Hughes]

Looking at things with that sort of attention to detail of the usage of the words in the text is beneficial. Test the lmitations and the master the capabilities of whatever reference works you get a hold of.

ξηραίνω - I dry (trans.); dry up, wither, stop, become stiff (intr.)

Anyway, it may be a safer bet to take the word in the missing parenthesis as passive.

In fact we are both right here. Let me take a few steps to change the format a little to show why

ξηραίνω - I dry; dry up, wither, stop, become stiff

ξηραίνω - I dry (trans.); dry up, wither, stop, become stiff (intr.)

ξηραίνω - I dry (act.); dry up, wither, stop, become stiff (pass.)

For this verb, so far as it is used in the New Testament, the Greek active sufficiently equates to the English transitive that the English transitive can be used to adequately translate the Greek active. By the same reasoning, the English instransitive can be used to adequately translate the Greek middle/passive.

The work you are dealing with is a Greek - English glossary, and as such is doing it's best to relate two languages together, not to explain the usage of the Greek.

English has a very great distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs. When we English speakers look at Greek, we tend to see that, because we look for it. In Greek, however, the transitive / intransitive distinction only seems to be there if you are looking for it. If there is an accusative with a verb, it is a word in an accusative-type relationship with the verb, and that can be with an active or a middle-passive verb. If there is a genitive with a verb, it is a word in a gentive-type relationship with the verb, and so for the other oblique case, the dative.

For ξηραίνειν, among the examples in the New Testament it is the one (and only) in the active voice; ὁ ἥλιος ... ἐξήρανεν τὸν χόρτον "the sun withers the grass", that has a noun (nominal phrase) in the accusative. In English - both our language thinking and the needs of English to render it - that is thought of and rendered as a direct object.

In that way, we are both correct, me in writing (trans.) / (intr.), and you writing (pass.)