Etymologically
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καυλός

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kau̯.lós/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /kaˈβlos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /kaˈvlos/[1]

Forms

καυλός (kaulós) m (genitive καυλοῦ); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is an old inherited word, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂ulo- (“shaft”), also found in Latin and Baltic.[2][3] Cognate with Latin caulis (“stalk”), whose /i/-stem is secondary, Lithuanian káulas (“bone”), Latvian kaũls (“stalk, bone”), Old Prussian caulan (“bone”) and Old Irish cúal (“faggot, bundle of sticks”).[2][3][4] Wiktionary gives the root form as Proto-Indo-European *kh₂ulós or *kawlós (“tubular bone, pipe, stalk”) and compares κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow”), with phonetic problems left unresolved.[1] Beekes rejects a link with Sanskrit कुल्या (kulyā́, “ditch, canal”) and with the Germanic word for “hollow”.[2]

Ancient writers derived it from αὐλός (aulós, “pipe”) with a prothetic /k/, because a stalk is long like a pipe,[5] but Chantraine notes that nothing can be drawn from the rhyme.[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Homer, only in the Iliad, it is the shaft of a spear, the part where the spear-head sits, and once the hilt of a sword.[6][7]

Semantic evolution

From Epicharmus and Aristophanes on its usual sense is the stem or stalk of a plant, as opposed to the trunk of a tree in Theophrastus; comedy names the stalk of silphium from Cyrene.[6][7] Aristophanes uses the plural figuratively for the juiciest parts of magistrates' audits.[7] Plato and Aristotle use it for the quill of a feather, and Aristotle for tubular parts of animals, such as the neck of the bladder, the duct of the penis and the ovipositor of locusts.[6][7]

Medieval Greek kept it, partly as a learned word.[8] In Modern Greek καυλός (kavlós) is the stem of a plant,[9] and Babiniotis notes that the sense “penis” is already ancient, and lists the slang derivatives Modern Greek καυλί (kavlí) and καυλώνω (kavlóno).[9]

Timeline

  • Homer – The Iliad uses it for the shaft of a spear and the hilt of a sword.[6][10]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it for plant stalks, including the silphium stalk.[6][11]
  • 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it for the quill of a feather.[6][11]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for tubular organs of animals.[6][11]
  • 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus distinguishes the stalk of a plant from the trunk of a tree.[6][11]
  • Modern Greek – It survives as Modern Greek καυλός (kavlós).[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The stem or stalk of a plant.[6][7]
  2. (Homer) The shaft of a spear, where the head is fixed; the hilt of a sword.[6][7]
  3. The quill of a feather.[6][7]
  4. (anatomy) A tubular part of an animal: the neck of the bladder, the duct of the penis, the cervix, the ovipositor of locusts.[6]
  5. The shank of a fish-hook.[6]

Word family

  • καύλινος (kaúlinos)
  • στρογγυλόκαυλος (strongulókaulos)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c 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 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
  4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
  5. ^ a b Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  8. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  9. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
  10. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge