oikonomía

Oikonomía, from the Greek οἰκονομία (oikonomía), combines oikos “house” and nomos “law” or “management,” and originally meant household management or regulation of a household’s resources. In ancient Greece, oikonomía referred to the prudent administration of a household estate, including land, slaves, crops, and finances, with the aim of sustaining the household over time. The concept informed early political and economic thought, distinguishing private domestic administration from public governance.

In Aristotle’s Oikonomiká and in Xenophon’s Oikonomikos, oikonomía is treated as the practical science of managing kin and property, emphasizing thrift, balance of income and expenditures, and sustainable provisioning. The term also supplied the root for later Latin oeconomia and, more broadly, for the idea of an economy: the management of resources at larger scales such as estates, cities, and states.

During late antiquity and the medieval period, oeconomia referred to the administration of wealth and resources within polities, contributing to the development of political economy as a discipline. In modern times the Greek word οἰκονομία denotes the economy of a country or region and, in the plural, οικονομικά refers to the subject area of economics. Oikonomía thus traces its lineage from household management in classical Greece to the modern science and study of economies, while remaining a central term in contemporary Greek for both everyday economic life and the academic field of economics.