Source — Triantafyllidis Foundation, Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής [Dictionary of Standard Modern Greek], entry "μεράκι"
- Title: μεράκι (entry in Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής / Dictionary of Standard Modern Greek)
- Author/Publisher: Triantafyllidis Foundation (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη), hosted by the Centre for the Greek Language (Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας)
- Publication: greek-language.gr
- Date: dictionary first published 1998; the online edition itself is copyrighted "2006–2008" per the page's own footer (no later revision date given)
- URL: http://www.greek-language.gr/greekLang/en/modern_greek/tools/lexica/triantafyllides/search.html?lq=μεράκι
- Accessed: 2026-09-02
- Type: primary — a national academic authority's own general-language dictionary entry, directly read (not secondhand). This is this project's first successful direct reading of a source-language primary lexicographic entry for any word case study — every prior word's equivalent primary dictionary (Van Dale for gezellig, the Swedish Academy dictionaries for lagom, Japanese kokugo dictionaries for wabi-sabi/komorebi) has so far been either unreachable, guessed-and-wrong, or unattempted (see
NEXT.md's Fences). - Access method note: the direct entry URL was found by following the "Further reading" link on the Wiktionary μεράκι page (
wiktionary-meraki.md) rather than by guessing a URL — the guessed-URL failure mode that burned session 26 (wabi-sabi/Kotobank) and session 28 (lagom/SAOB) was avoided this way. Fetched viacurlwith a browser User-Agent (HTTP 200) and read from the raw HTML directly (Greek text; no translation tool used — this project's own reading).
Extract
Original Greek text, with this project's own translation:
μεράκι το [meráki] Ο44: 1. πολύ έντονη επιθυμία· (πρβ. πόθος): Έχω ~ να πάω στο Παρίσι. Aν το παιδί δεν έχει ~ για γράμματα, μην το πιέζεις. 2. έντονη αγάπη και φροντίδα για κτ., ιδίως για ορισμένη δραστηριότητα· (πρβ. γούστο): Ο παλιός μάστορας δούλευε με ~, όχι τυποποιημένα όπως ο σύγχρονος οικοδόμος. 3. (συνήθ. πληθ.) έντονα ευάρεστο συναίσθημα που συνήθ. προέρχεται από τη διασκέδαση· (πρβ. κέφι): Aπόψε ήπιε κάτι παραπάνω και ήλθε στα μεράκια. [τουρκ. merak (από τα αραβ.) -ι]
This project's translation: "μεράκι, neuter [meráki], declension class Ο44: 1. A very intense desire (compare póthos, 'longing'): 'I have meraki to go to Paris.' 'If the child has no meraki for schoolwork, don't push him.' 2. Intense love and care for something, especially for a particular activity (compare goústo, 'taste/preference'): 'The old-time craftsman worked with meraki, not in a standardized way like the modern-day builder.' 3. (usually plural) An intensely pleasant feeling that usually comes from having a good time (compare kéfi, 'high spirits'): 'Tonight he drank a bit too much and got into ta merákia [the meraki-state].' [Turkish merak (from the Arabic) + -i]"
- The dictionary's own etymology line is terse but explicit: Turkish merak, itself "from the Arabic," plus the Greek neuter-noun suffix -i. It does not name the specific Arabic word — consistent with this project's own finding (
wiktionary-merak-ottoman-turkish.md) that even Wiktionary's Ottoman Turkish entry does not spell out the Arabic derivation, leaving OddFeed's Nişanyan citation as the only source on file naming a specific Arabic root. - The three senses and their three example sentences match, word for word in substance, both the OddFeed article's paraphrase and Nick Nicholas's independent translation on his own blog (
hellenisteukontos-nicholas-2016-triantafyllidis-meraki.md) — two independent secondary renderings of this same primary entry converge with this project's own direct reading, a positive cross-check this project has not previously been able to run against a source-language dictionary for any other word.
Gaps
- No further-reading citations or usage-history notes are given on this page beyond the terse etymology bracket; the dictionary gives no attestation date for the word's entry into Greek.