ἀβί <Iranian; Early Byzantine period>
👉 ἀβί – a Scythian word possibly with the meaning of ὑπό, i.e. ‘under, by’ (Hsch. α 117).
⚠ Hsch. α 117: ἀβί· ὑπό, Σκύθαις εἴρηται... The lemma is commonly interpreted as “abi: under/by, it is spoken so by Scythians”. However, one should expect here an additional preposition like παρὰ Σκύθαις. No doubt, the gloss is corrupt; cf. an improbable conjecture: Ἄβιοι· οὕτω Σκύθαι εἴρηνται (L. Küster).
🅔 A Scythian word without a convincing explanation. From a semantic point of view, it is rather improbable that ἀβί goes back to Proto-Iranian *abi ‘to, towards’, cf. Old Avestan aibi ‘to, towards’, Young Avestan aiβi ‘id.’, Old Persian abi ‘id.’.
📖 Data: AiW: 87; ESIJa: I, 72f.; WAK: 124. Ref.: cf. Brust 2008: 3.