πτίλον

• ψῐ́λον (psílon) — Doric

Of uncertain origin, with suggestions including Pre-Greek origin as shown by the alternative form ψίλον (psílon), relation to πέτομαι (pétomai, “to fly”) (e.g., via a Proto-Indo-European preform *pth₂-il-o-m), or to the Latin pilus (“a hair”).^[1]

Related to Mycenaean Greek 𐀠𐀴𐁊𐀸𐀭 (pi-ti-ryo-we-sa /⁠ptilowessa⁠/, “decorated with a feather pattern”).^[2]

πτῐ́λον • (ptílon) n (genitive πτῐ́λου); second declension (Attic)

1. feather, especially a down feather
   • 400 BCE – 200 BCE, Clytus, Collected Works 1
   • 175 CE – 235 CE, Claudius Aelianus, On the Nature of Animals 12.4
   • 450 BCE – 350 BCE, Plato Comicus, Collected Works 97
   • 4th century BC, Eubulus, Collected Works 5
   • 200 BCE – 118 BCE, Polybius, The Histories 21.28.12
   1. the down of a youth's face
      • 60 BCE – 7 BCE, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, On Demosthenes 51
   2. plumelet
      • 446 BCE – 386 BCE, Aristophanes, The Acharnians 585
      • 446 BCE – 386 BCE, Aristophanes, The Acharnians 1182
2. wing, properly of insects
   • 384 BCE – 322 BCE, Aristotle, Progression of Animals 713A.10
   1. the wing-like membrane in a kind of serpents
      • 460 BCE – 420 BCE, Herodotus, Histories 2.76
3. anything like a feather or wing
   1. leaf
      • 200 BCE – 100 BCE, Nicander, Theriaca 524
   2. (in the plural) the sails of a ship
      • 300 BCE – 200 BCE, Lycophron, Alexandra 25

• Ψῐ́λαξ (Psílax) (via the Doric form ψίλον)

• Translingual: Pachyptila, Pachyptile, Pachyptilum, Pachyptilus (generic names)
• English: -ptile, ptilo-
• French: ptil-, -ptile
• Latin: ptilo- (New Latin)

• “πτίλον”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “πτίλον”, in Liddell & Scott (1889) An Intermediate Greek–English Lexicon, New York: Harper & Brothers
• πτίλον in Bailly, Anatole (1935) Le Grand Bailly: Dictionnaire grec-français, Paris: Hachette