ἀζάτη <Iranian; Early Byzantine period>
👉 ἀζάτη f. – ‘freedom’ (Hsch. α 1442).
🅔 An Iranian word taken probably from a late Old Iranian or an early Middle Iranian language. There are some counterparts in Middle Iranian: Middle Persian āzādīh ‘freedom, liberty’, Parthian āzādīft ‘id.’; cf. Young Avestan āzāta- ‘high-born, noble’, Middle Persian āzād, āzādag ‘noble; free’, Middle Persian (epigr.) ʾzʾt, ʾzʾty ‘noble’, Parthian āzād ‘noble; free’, Parthian (epigr.) ʾzʾt ‘noble’, Khotan Saka āysāta- ‘well-born’, Sogdian āzā̆tē ‘freeman, noble’, āzā̆č ‘freewoman, noble’ etc., as well as Iranian loanwords in other languages: Official Aramaic ʾzt ‘free’, Syriac ʾzdʾ ‘freeman, noble’, Armenian azat ‘free, freed; independent; noble’. The forms listed above consist of the prefix ā- ‘to, at’, the Iranian root *ȷ́anH- (actually zero-grade *ȷ́n̥H-) with the meaning ‘to give birth’, pass. ‘to be born’ (from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh1- ‘to beget, bear’) and the participle suffix -ta- (e.g. like in Old Persian mr̥ta- ‘dead’ from mar- ‘to die’). Ultimately, Greek ἀζάτη seems to go back to Median *āzātā- f., probably borrowed also into Old Persian (generally, the Proto-Indo-European palatal stop *ǵ developed into z in Median and into d in Old Persian). The word ἀζάτη appeared in Greek not earlier than in the 4th c. BCE (when the letter ζ had the value of the voiced fricative z), but before the change t > d in Middle Iranian. Cf. ἀζῆται.
📖 AiW: 343; CPD: 15; DKhS: 20f.; DMMPP: 84f.; DNWSI: 28; EDIV: 464-466; GIPP: 19 and 48; MP: II, 41; NDAE: 2; SL: 24; SogdD: 16 and 17. Ref.: Brust 2008: 52-54; Hinz 1975: 25; ILS: 104f.; Olsen 1999: 862, no. 2.