The headword is the third person plural, aorist indicative active, of a)bake/w. This form is found only in Homer, Odyssey 4.249 (web address 1), and the many lexicographical notices generated by it. Of those the most similar to this entry are Photius, Lexicon alpha22 Theodoridis, and Etymologicum Magnum 2.30-31. Compare also Apollonius Sophistes, Homeric Lexicon 2.16; Hesychius alpha54. The glosses offered here and elsewhere probably represent semantic extrapolation from the Homeric context: When Odysseus comes in disguise to Troy, Helen knows who he is but the rest of the people in Troy a)ba/khsan. The translation of the headword, on the other hand, reflects the verb's probable etymological connection with the verb ba/zw 'speak', and the adjective a)bakh/s ('speechless', 'tranquil'). Cf. Chantraine s.v. a)bakh/s, a connection that is sometimes mentioned as a possibility in the ancient scholarship.