κύτος

Forms

κῠ́τος (kútos) n (genitive κῠ́τους); third declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[1] Beekes connects it with σκῦτος (skûtos, “skin, leather”), Latin cutis (“skin”), Old High German hūt (“hide”), Old Prussian keuto (“skin”) and Lithuanian kiáutas (“shell, rind”), from a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)kHu-t- (“cover, skin”).^[2][3] The short vowel of κύτος beside the long one of the word for skin is a difficulty, and Beekes explains it by a shift of the laryngeal that took place only under the accent.^[2][1] Others split the word into one meaning “skin” and another meaning “hollow” and connect the second with κυέω (kuéō, “to be pregnant”), but that would need a long vowel, which the word does not have.^[2] Wiktionary notes that a substrate origin is possible in view of these problems.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Alcman, in the 7th century BC, of the bowl of a vessel.^[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

In tragedy it is the hollow of a shield, a cauldron or a tripod, and also any vessel or jar, such as an urn for ashes or a basket.^[7][4] Plato applies it to the body: the skull is the vessel of the head, the chest that of the thorax, and the whole body is the vessel of the soul.^[7][4] Sophocles and Plato also use it for the trunk.^[7][4] Aristotle uses it of parts of animals, and later medical writers of the womb.^[7]

Polybius uses it of the hold of a ship and of the whole body of a city behind its walls.^[7][4] In the Septuagint and the First Epistle of Clement it is the hollow of the sea.^[5]

Modern Greek keeps κύτος (kýtos) as a learned word for the hold of a ship and for cavities of the body enclosed by bone, such as the chest.^[8][6] Through a Latinized form it gave the scientific prefix cyto- “cell”.^[9]

Timeline

• 7th century BC – Alcman uses it of the bowl of a vessel.^[4][5]
• 6th–5th century BC – Aeschylus uses it of the hollow of a shield and of a jar.^[7][4]
• 5th century BC – Sophocles uses it of the trunk of the body.^[7][4]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it of the skull, the chest and the body as the vessel of the soul.^[7][4]
• 2nd century BC – Polybius uses it of the hold of a ship.^[7][4][6]
• About 1859 – Modern science starts to use the prefix cyto- for “cell”.^[9]
• Modern Greek – The learned word names the hold of a ship and the cavities of the body.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hollow, the rounded body of a shield, cuirass, cauldron or cup.^[7][4]
2. A vessel, jar, urn; a basket.^[7][4]
3. Any container; of the body, the vessel of the soul; of the head, the skull.^[7][4]
4. The trunk of the body; the body itself.^[7][4]
5. The hold of a ship.^[7][4]
6. (figurative) The main body of a city.^[7][4]
7. (late) The vault of heaven; the hollow of the sea.^[7][5]

Word family

• κυτίς (kutís)
• κυτίον (kutíon)
• ἐγκυτί (enkutí)

Related words

• σκῦτος (skûtos)
• Latin cutis
• English cyto-

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
5. ^ a b c d Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
6. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com