σαυκός

The entry by Beekes in his Etymological Dictionary of Greek reads (in paraphrase):

"A number of wrong etymologies have been proposed, like a borrowing from an original Italic word related to αὖος (aûos, “dry”). Conversely, Furnée convincingly compares σαυχμόν (saukhmón, “tender; spongy; unsound”) and σαβακός (sabakós, “weak, moldered, smashed”). It follows that the word is Pre-Greek."

σαυκός • (saukós) m (feminine σαυκή, neuter σαυκόν); first/second declension

1. (at Syracuse) dry
   • 5th century CE, Hesychius Alexandreus, Συναγωγὴ Πασῶν Λέξεων κατὰ Στοιχεῖον :

     σαυκόν· ξηρόν. Συρακούσιοι

     saukón; xērón. Surakoúsioi

     saukón: dry (Syracusans)

• “σαυκός”, in Liddell & Scott (1940) A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010) “σαυκόν”, in Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 1312