γλουτός

Forms

γλουτός (gloutós) m (genitive γλουτοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2] The usual comparison is with Slovene glȗta “lump, swelling”, if that comes from *glout-, and, with a looser meaning, with Old English clūd (“mass of stone, rock”), the source of the English word cloud.^[2][3][4] Without the suffix in /t/ the same base is seen in Sanskrit ग्लौ (gláu-, “round lump, wen-like swelling”), which suggests an original sense “roundness”.^[2][4] Schwyzer took the /t/ as a secondary suffix, comparing πρωκτός (prōktós, “anus”), a word of similar meaning and formation.^[2][3] Beekes finds the Indo-European material unconvincing and, if the dental is old, would rather see a Pre-Greek word.^[2][1] The DGE instead traces it to a root Proto-Indo-European *gelHu- in its zero grade, as in Old High German kliuwa (“ball”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Homer on, meaning the buttock: in the Iliad a spear strikes a warrior in the right buttock, and the plural is used for the buttocks of an animal.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Greek it stayed the ordinary word for the buttock of a person or an animal, in the plural (Homer, Herodotus) or the dual (Xenophon) for the pair.^[7][4] The Hippocratic writers and Aristotle use it in anatomy, and Chantraine notes that it was kept apart from the words for the hips, ἰσχίον (iskhíon), and for the anus, πρωκτός (prōktós).^[6][4] Its diminutive γλούτια (gloútia) was used by Galen for two small swellings of the brain.^[4][3] Hesychius records a further sense, the rounded rim of the hip socket.^[6]

It survives as Modern Greek γλουτός (glutós), a learned word taken from the ancient one.^[8][9] Through Modern Latin glutaeus it gave the English anatomical term gluteus, first recorded in the 1680s.^[10]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it of a warrior's buttock, and in the plural.^[6][11]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses the plural; the Hippocratic writers use it in surgery.^[6][11][5]
• 4th century BC – Xenophon has the dual, and Aristotle describes the part in his zoology.^[6][7][5]
• 2nd century AD – Galen uses the diminutive for two swellings of the brain.^[4][3][5]
• 1680s – English takes the anatomical term gluteus from it through Modern Latin.^[10]
• Modern Greek – It survives as a learned word for the buttock.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The buttock, of a person or an animal; in the plural or dual, the buttocks.^[6][7]
2. (Hesychius) The rounded rim of the hip socket.^[6]

Word family

• γλούτια (gloútia)

Related words

• English gluteus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b c d e f g Chantraine, Pierre (2009), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque: histoire des mots, new ed. with a supplement (Chroniques d'étymologie grecque 1–10), Paris: Klincksieck
5. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux