Etymologically
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κόχλος

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /kó.kʰlos/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈko.xlos/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈko.xlos/[1]

Forms

κόχλος (kókhlos) m (genitive κόχλου); second declension[1] Variants κόχλαξ and κάχληξ.[2][3]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek: it is clearly related to κόγχη (kónkhē, “mussel”) and κόγχος (kónkhos), with the prenasalization of that layer, and the vowel varies in κόχλαξ (kókhlax) beside κάχληξ (kákhlēx).[2][3] Chantraine finds the link with κόγχη (kónkhē) evident and compares the loss of the nasal with Modern Greek κοχύλι (kochýli) from κογχύλιον (konkhúlion).[4] PHILOGLOSSA rates the etymology as of medium reliability.[5]

Ancient etymologists derived it from χαλάω (khaláō, “to slacken”), by doubling the first syllable.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Euripides first mentions it in the Iphigenia in Tauris, of shells blown as trumpets.[7][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Theocritus and Moschus also speak of the conch blown as a trumpet, and Apollonius Rhodius has it as a feminine for a large sea-shell.[7][8] Aristotle uses it for the spiral-shelled sea-snail used for purple dye, the murex, and for a land snail,[7] and Eustathius records it for kohl.[7][2]

Medieval Greek kept the ancient noun.[10]

Timeline

  • 5th century BC – Euripides uses it for shells blown as trumpets.[7][8]
  • 4th century BC – Aristotle uses it for the purple-dye snail and the land snail.[7]
  • 3rd century BC – Apollonius Rhodius uses it as a feminine for a large shell.[7][8]
  • 12th century AD – Eustathius records it for kohl.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A shellfish with a spiral shell, used for purple dye, the murex.[7][2]
  2. A conch shell blown as a trumpet.[8][7]
  3. A land snail.[7]
  4. Kohl.[7][2]

Word family

  • κόχλιας (kókhliās)
  • κοχλίς (kokhlís)

References

  1. ^ a b c d 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 Beekes, Robert S. P. (2014), Pre-Greek: Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, ed. Stefan Norbruis, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ 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. ^ Scarborough, Matthew (2025), PHILOGLOSSA: database of Pre-Greek and other non-Indo-European words in Ancient Greek, version 1.0
  6. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  9. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr