πῖλος

Forms

πῖλος (pîlos) m (genitive πῑ́λου); second declension^[1]

Etymology

Beekes and Frisk consider it most probably an old culture word of unknown origin.^[2][3] Similar words for “felt” are Latin pilleus (“felt cap”), Old High German filz, Old English felt and Old East Slavic пълсть (pŭlstĭ, “felt cover”),^[2] but each is ambiguous.^[2] The Germanic words point to an s-stem, which may instead belong with Old High German falzen (“to join”), and the Latin word may be linked with Latin pilus (“hair”).^[2]

Schmidt reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *pil-s-, a zero grade of an s-stem beside the word for “hair”, and Pokorny follows him,^[4][2] but Beekes no longer finds this convincing and Frisk calls it a paper construction.^[2][3] Wiktionary instead groups it with Proto-Slavic *pьlstь (“felt”) and the English word felt.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Iliad it is the felt lining of the leather helmet that Meriones gives to Odysseus.^[5][6][7] Hesiod uses it for the felt lining of shoes and for a felt cap.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

From the felt itself the word passed to things made of it: caps, shoes, blankets and mats, horse-cloths and the felt jerkin that Thucydides mentions.^[6][8][7] Above all it was a conical close-fitting cap, worn by craftsmen and others, and Herodotus uses it of the caps of eastern peoples.^[7][6] Aristophanes jokingly calls a helmet a “brass felt hat”, and Plato uses it playfully of human hair.^[6][8]

Theophrastus uses it for touchwood and for the bud of the lotus.^[6][2] According to Saalfeld, Latin pilleus is a borrowing of it.^[9] In Modern Greek πίλος (pílos) is a learned word for a hat.^[10][11]

Timeline

• Homer – The Iliad uses it for the felt lining of a helmet.^[5][6]
• Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it for felt shoes and a felt cap.^[6][12]
• 5th century BC – Herodotus uses it for felt blankets and the caps of eastern peoples.^[6][7][12]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses it for a felt jerkin.^[6][7][12]
• 4th–3rd century BC – Theophrastus uses it for touchwood.^[6][12]
• Modern Greek – πίλος (pílos) is a learned word for a hat.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Wool or hair compressed into felt, as a lining of helmets or boots.^[8][6]
2. A close-fitting felt cap.^[8][6]
3. A felt shoe.^[6]
4. Felt cloth, used for carpets, mats and tents.^[8][6]
5. A felt cuirass or jerkin.^[6]
6. Touchwood, a fungus.^[6][2]
7. The bud of the lotus.^[2][6]

Word family

• πιλέω (pīléō)
• πίλινος (pílinos)

Related words

• Latin pilleus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
5. ^ a b Cunliffe, Richard John (1924), A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect, London: Blackie and Son
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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 Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
9. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
10. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
12. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge