χυλός

Pronunciation

• 5th-century BC Attic: /kʰyː.lós/^[1]
• 4th-century AD Koine: /çyˈlos/^[1]
• 10th-century Byzantine: /çyˈlos/^[1]

Forms

χῡλός (khūlós) m (genitive χῡλοῦ); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is traditionally from Ancient Greek χέω (khéō, “to pour”), like χυμός (khūmós, “juice, flavour”).^[2][3][1] Frisk thought this by far the likeliest connection.^[3] The long ῡ, against the short vowel of χυτός (khutós, “poured”), is hard to explain: a suffix *-slo- or *-smo- has been proposed, but Beekes finds this unsatisfactory, since no other form with *ǵʰu-s- is known.^[2][3] Chantraine thought of an expressive lengthening.^[3] Πάπυρος likewise derives it from the zero grade of the root of χέω, despite the long vowel.^[4]

The 1st-century BC grammarian Philoxenus derived it from a verb *χύω (*khúō), which he set up beside χέω.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest attestations are in Attic comedy: Cratinus has it for barley-water, and Aristophanes' Peace and Frogs use it of the juice of friendship and of a juice of chatter given to tragedy as medicine.^[6][7][8]

Semantic evolution

In medicine it is the barley-water strained of the groats, as opposed to πτισάνη (ptisánē) taken unstrained.^[6] Plato, Aristotle and Theophrastus use it for the juices of plants, fruits and flowers, and Aristotle and the Hippocratic writers for animal juices.^[6][7] Gorgias and Epicurus use it for taste or flavour, in the sense of χυμός (khūmós).^[6] Galen distinguished χυλός “juice” from χυμός “flavour”, and he uses it for chyle, the juice produced by digestion.^[6]

Late Latin took the word as chylus, the juice of a plant, which gave English chyle in the 1540s.^[9] Modern Greek χυλός (chylós) means a gruel or pap, and in physiology chyle.^[10][4]

Timeline

• 5th century BC – Cratinus uses it for barley-water.^[6][11]
• 5th century BC – The Hippocratic writers use it for barley-water and animal juices.^[6][11]
• 5th–4th century BC – Aristophanes uses it figuratively, and Plato for the juices of plants.^[6][7][11]
• 2nd century AD – Galen uses it for chyle.^[6][11]
• 1540s – English chyle is recorded.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Juice, sap, especially the juice of plants.^[6][7]
2. A decoction.^[6]
3. The juices of animals.^[6]
4. (medicine) Barley-water, gruel, strained of the groats.^[6][2]
5. (medicine) Chyle, the juice of digestion.^[6]
6. Flavour, taste.^[6][2]

Word family

• κακόχυλος (kakókhūlos)
• χυλοειδής (khuloeidḗs)

Related words

• χυμός (khūmós)
• χέω (khéō)
• English chyle

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 Frisk, Hjalmar (1960–1972), Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 vols, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
4. ^ a b Πάπυρος–Larousse–Britannica, Μέγα Λεξικό της Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, Athens: Πάπυρος
5. ^ Etygram: ancient etymologies of Greek words, CEPAM, Université Côte d'Azur, http://appsweb-cepam.unice.fr/etygram
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
8. ^ Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
11. ^ a b c d Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge