σκυτάλη

Forms

σκῠτάλη (skutálē) f (genitive σκῠτάλης); first declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is unknown.^[2][1] The suffix is that of instrument names such as ῥόπαλον (rhópalon, “club”) and πάσσαλος (pássalos, “peg”).^[3][4] Frisk suggested a base *σκύτος (*skútos) “piece of wood with the bark scraped off”, which would match Lithuanian skùtas (“rag, piece”) and the verb Lithuanian skutù (“to shave, scrape”), but Chantraine calls the etymology uncertain, and Beekes gives none.^[4][3][2] Babiniotis also considers a further link with σκῦτος (skûtos, “leather”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Archilochus, in the 7th century BC, uses it for a message.^[6][5] Pindar calls the poet's messenger a “dispatch-staff of the Muses”.^[6][3]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is a staff, club or round piece of wood, with many technical uses.^[3][4] At Sparta it was the staff around which a strip with a written message was wound, and so came to mean a Spartan dispatch, as in Thucydides, Aristophanes and Xenophon.^[6][7][3] Plutarch, in the Imperial period, describes it as a way of sending secret messages: the strip, unrolled, could be read only by someone with a staff of the same thickness.^[8][7][6] Diodorus and Plutarch also use it for a cudgel, and Nicander and others for a snake with a body of even thickness.^[7][6][2]

It was borrowed into Latin as scutula and scytala.^[9][2] Today Modern Greek σκυτάλη (skytáli) is a learned word for the baton of a relay race, and the phrase “to hand over the baton”.^[10]

Timeline

• 7th century BC – Archilochus uses it for a message.^[6][5]
• 6th–5th century BC – Pindar calls a messenger the dispatch-staff of the Muses.^[6]
• 5th century BC – Thucydides uses it for a Spartan dispatch.^[7][6]
• 5th–4th century BC – Plato uses it, probably for a stick.^[6]
• 1st–2nd century AD – Plutarch describes the staff as a means of sending secret messages.^[8][6]
• Modern Greek – It is the baton of a relay race.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A staff, cudgel, club.^[7][6]
2. (Sparta) A staff around which a message was wound; a dispatch sent in this way.^[7][6]
3. A message, dispatch.^[6]
4. A kind of snake.^[7][6]

Word family

• σκυτάλιον (skutálion)
• σκυταλίς (skutalís)
• σκυταλισμός (skutalismós)

Related words

• Latin scutula
• Latin scytala
• Modern Greek σκυτάλη (skytáli)

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 d e 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. ^ a b c Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
5. ^ a b c Babiniotis, Georgios (2010), Ετυμολογικό λεξικό της νέας ελληνικής γλώσσας [Etymological Dictionary of Modern Greek], Athens: Κέντρο Λεξικολογίας
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Cancik, Hubert; Schneider, Helmuth, eds. (2002–2010), Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World, Leiden: Brill
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