ἀζῆται <Iranian; Early Byzantine period>
👉 ἀζῆται (pl.) m. – a gloss with the meaning of οἱ ἐγγύτατοι τοῦ βασιλέως ‘those closest to the king’ (Hsch. α 1469).
⚠ The explanation given by Hesychius may refer to the Persian court; cf. LXX: Esth. 1.14: οἱ ἐγγὺς τοῦ βασιλέως – “those close to the king” (in the context of the king Xerxes).
🅔 An Iranian word – 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 Greek form ἀζῆται should be interpreted as originally Median *āzāta- m. (sg.) containing the prefix ā- ‘to, at’, the Iranian root *ȷ́anH- (actually zero-grade *ȷ́n̥H-) ‘to give birth’, pass. ‘to be born’ and the participle suffix -ta- (Median *āzāta- was probably a loanword in Old Persian, too); for more, see ἀζάτη. The foreign word was adopted in the late Classical (ζ as fricative z) or Hellenistic period (before the change t > d in Middle Iranian). It is not clear why the Iranian vowel -ā- was rendered as -η- (cf. Iranian ā- vs. Greek ἀ- at the beginning of the word); perhaps a late influence of the Ionian dialect? Cf. an old view that ἀζῆται was a native word connected with ἄοζος m. ‘servant’, ἀοζέω ‘to serve, wait on’.
📖 AiW: 343; CPD: 15; DKhS: 20f.; DMMPP: 84; DNWSI: 28; EDIV: 464-466; GIPP: 19 and 48; MP: II, 41; NDAE: 2; SL: 24; SogdD: 16 and 17. Ref.: Brust 2008: 54-56; ILS: 104f.; Olsen 1999: 862, no. 2; cf. Schulze 1892: 500.