κάστωρ

Pronunciation

• IPA (5th-century BC Attic): /kás.tɔːr/^[1]
• IPA (4th-century AD Koine): /ˈkas.tor/^[1]
• IPA (10th-century Byzantine): /ˈkas.tor/^[1]

Forms

κάστωρ (kástōr) m (genitive κάστορος); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is disputed.^[2][1] Since Kretschmer it has usually been taken from the name of Κάστωρ (Kástōr), one of the Dioscuri, who was invoked as a saviour of women, because castoreum, the beaver's secretion, was used against women's diseases.^[2][3] Frisk accepts this and traces the name itself to κέκασμαι (kékasmai).^[4][2][3]

Beekes rejects this as unsupported: the beaver no longer lived in Greece, and Herodotus first mentions it in the north Pontic region, so the word could be foreign or even inherited.^[2][3]

Wiktionary points to Sanskrit कस्तूरी (kastūrī, “musk”) and Sanskrit कस्तूरिका (kastūrikā, “musk deer, musk”), which would suggest an Indo-European *kestor- “beaver, musk”, and argues that the Sanskrit words are not borrowed from Greek καστόριον, as Beekes and Frisk hold; it also mentions Doric κάστον (káston) “wood”.^[1][2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Herodotus first mentions the beaver, in the north Pontic region.^[2][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Hippocratic writers and Aretaeus use κάστωρ for castoreum itself, the drug obtained from the animal, usually called καστόριον (kastórion).^[5][2] Hesychius describes it as the animal from which the “castor testicles” come.^[7] Aristotle and Aelian describe the animal, and in Pseudo-Dioscorides the word names saffron.^[5]

καστορίς (kastorís) named a Laconian breed of dogs said to have been first bred by Castor, and in Oppian and Aelian the beaver.^[2] It was borrowed as Latin castor, and it spread from Latin to other European languages, among them English castor.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Herodotus first mentions the beaver.^[2][5][8]
• 5th century BC – Hippocratic writers use it for castoreum.^[5][8]
• 4th century BC – Aristotle describes the animal.^[5][8]
• 2nd century AD – Aretaeus uses it for castoreum.^[5][8]
• 2nd–3rd century AD – Aelian describes the beaver.^[5][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. The beaver.^[5][6]
2. Castoreum, the drug obtained from the beaver.^[5][2]
3. (Pseudo-Dioscorides) Saffron.^[5]

Word family

• καστόριον (kastórion)
• καστορίς (kastorís)

Related words

• Latin castor
• English castor

Usage notes

The proper name Κάστωρ, Castor, son of Leda and brother of Polydeuces and Helen, is found from Homer on, and Mycenaean has the personal name ka-to(-ro).^[6][9][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ Hesychius of Alexandria, Lexicon, ed. Kurt Latte (Α–Ο, Copenhagen 1953–1966) and Moritz Schmidt (Π–Ω, Jena 1858–1868)
8. ^ a b c d e Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge
9. ^ Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
10. ^ Charbonnet, André, Onomata, v4 (Greek proper names, companion to Bailly 2020)