κύαθος

Forms

κύᾰθος (kúathos) m (genitive κῠάθου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes considers it Pre-Greek, from Pre-Greek.^[2][3] He points to the ending, which it shares with other vessel names such as λήκυθος (lḗkuthos) and γυργαθός (gurgathós), to the sequence -υα-, typical of Pre-Greek words, and to the variants κόβαθος (kóbathos) “a vessel” and κύβεθρον (kúbethron) “beehive”, which show the Pre-Greek alternations of β with zero, ο with υ and α with ε.^[2][3]

Chantraine allows that it may be a substrate word but prefers to derive it from κύαρ (kúar), a word for a hollow or the eye of a needle;^[4] Beekes rejects that link.^[2] Szemerényi compared Ugaritic and Hebrew words for a cup, a proposal Beekes does not accept.^[2] It passed into Latin as cyathus.^[2][5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first recorded use is in Anacreon, in the 6th century BC, for the ladle used to draw wine from the mixing bowl.^[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

In Attic comedy and in Xenophon it is the ladle of the symposium;^[6][7] because cold metal ladles were pressed on bruises, Aristophanes jokes about women with ladles stuck on their black eyes, and someone about to be beaten is told they will soon need a ladle.^[6][7] From this use the word also named a cupping-glass in medicine.^[7]

As a measure it was a ladleful, about a twelfth of a pint, and Galen gives it a fixed value in Attic measures.^[6][7] Philostratus uses it of the hollows round the collar-bones.^[6] It has diminutives such as κυάθιον (kuáthion) and a verb κυαθίζω (kuathízō) “to ladle out”;^[4] according to Diogenes Laertius, Plato coined κυαθότης (kuathótēs) “ladle-ness” for the abstract idea of a ladle.^[4] Latin took it over as cyathus, already in Plautus.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 6th century BC – Anacreon uses it for a wine ladle.^[6][7][8]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes mentions ladles pressed on bruised faces.^[6][7][8]
• 5th–4th century BC – Xenophon uses it for the ladle of the wine-pourer.^[6][8]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – Plautus uses the Latin loan cyathus.^[2][8]
• 2nd century AD – Galen defines it as an Attic measure.^[6][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ladle for drawing wine from the κρατήρ (kratḗr).^[6][7]
2. A ladleful, as a liquid measure of about a twelfth of a pint.^[6][7]
3. (medicine) A cupping-glass, or a metal ladle laid on bruises.^[7][6]
4. (plural) The hollows round the collar-bones.^[6]

Word family

• κυαθίζω (kuathízō)

Related words

• κύαρ (kúar)
• Latin cyathus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ a b c d 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 Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
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 h i j Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge