Resumen de A burning question. On the etymologies of Greek κήλων ‘stud’
This paper examines the meaning and origin of the Ancient Greek noun κήλων ‘stud animal’, which survives in certain dialects of Modern Greek. According to modern scholars, κήλων is a possessive denominative either of κῆλον ‘dart’, which was allegedly used to refer to the ‘penis’, or of an unattested *kālo- ‘testicle’. To the contrary, I argue that κήλων originates with the adjective κηλός ‘burnt’ or ‘burning’ (< *keh2-elo-), which is a deverbative form of καίω (< *keh2-), documented in two poetic compounds (περίκηλος, εὔκηλος). The semantic evolution of the noun κήλων ‘one that is burnt or is burning (by/with sexual desire)’ > ‘stud’, rests on the familiar conceptual metaphor SEXUAL AROUSAL IS FIRE.
