ὕλη=Lat. materies, from the same root as mater, whence Eng. material and matter. (ὕλη, ὕλFα, is the same word as sylva=wood. With materies cf. Madeira, from the Portuguese “madera”=timber.) “The word ὕλη in Plato bears the same signification as in ordinary speech: it means wood, timber, and sometimes generally material. The later philosophic application of the word to signify the abstract conception of material substratum is expressed by Plato, so far as he has that concept at all, in other ways.” Ed. Zeller. Plato and the older Academy, ii. 296. Similarly Basil uses ὕλη. As a technical philosophic term for abstract matter, it is first used by Aristotle.