κάστωρ: Difference between revisions

|etymtx=-ορος<br />Grammatical information: m.<br />Meaning: `[[beaver]] (Hdt., Hp., Arist.).<br />Derivatives: <b class="b3">καστόρ(ε)ιος</b> `[[belonging to the beaver]] (Pi., X., Dsc.), <b class="b3">καστόρ(ε)ιον</b> n. <b class="b2">castor (= Bibergeil)</b>' (pap., Plu.); <b class="b3">καστορίδες</b> f. pl. `<b class="b2">Laconian race of dogs, initially elevated by Castor</b> (AP, Poll.), `[[beaver]] (Opp., Ael.); <b class="b3">καστορίζω</b> `<b class="b2">be like castor</b> (Dsc., Vett. Val.).<br />Origin: XX [etym. unknown]<br />Etymology: Since Kretschmer, Wiener Eranos, 1909,121-3 one assumes that, because of the medicinal effect of the castor for women's diseases the name <b class="b3">Κάστωρ</b>, who was known as <b class="b3">σωτήρ</b> of women, was transferred to the beaver. S. Bq s. v. Schwyzer 635 gives parallel cases, but there are no real parallels (he gives only <b class="b3">ἀλέκτωρ</b>, which is prob. also incorrect). This idea has been uncritically taken over. In fact Kretschmer has no specific argument. Thus Gantz, Early Gr. Myth (1993), who discusses the Dioskouroi rather extensively (323-328) mentions nothing about a relation with the beaver. There is, then, nothing that makes it probable that the name of Castor was also used for the beaver. This kind of pseudo-certainties should be abandoned. Schrader-Nehring 138 point out that the animal no longer existed in Greece and that the word will be a foreign word. It is first mentiond in Hdt. 4, 109 in the North Pontic area. (A Pre-Greek word for `[[beaver]] may have been <b class="b3">λάταξ</b>. There seem to have been words in <b class="b3">-τωρ</b> in Pre-Greek: <b class="b3">βιάτωρ</b>, <b class="b3">λείτωρ</b>. The word was taken over in Latin and spread from there to the European languages. W.-Hofmann s. [[castrō]] and [[ēcastor]], Wahrmann Glotta 17, 258. From <b class="b3">καστόρ(ε)ιον</b> Skt. [[kastūrī]] f. `[[musk]].