The adjective comes from the word for bolt, ma/ndalos, a word without known etymology, as the verbal adjective of a verb known only in the definition of Hesychius for its synonym tularo/w. The ancients closed their doors with bars. The verb for closing, klei/w, and its derivatives normally apply to this manner of closing. A bolt is the cylindrical shaft inserted into a socket, both normally metallic; the mandalos was, it seems from the evidence, used to bolt a door to the floor or to the lintel. The kiss mandalwto/s 'bolted-shut' is also reported by Hesychius (mu224) and Photius (Lexicon mu86 and mu 87 Theodoridis).
At Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae 130-33, quoted here, Mnesilochus uses these three adjectives of a "sweet melody" (h(du\ me/los), but it is totally unclear in what way they apply to music (although Eustathius also uses 'hairdresser' for music, see note 1 below). The explanation "intricate and sweet," appropriate to music, may imply that they were contemporary slang for something fashionable. They arouse, however, an erotic tickling "under his seat" and, as the entry here and the scholia explain, they evoke types of kisses (cf. the explanatory translation at web address 1). In addition, the compound e)pimandalwto/s is specifically used of a kiss that the drunken Dicaeopolis demands of the courtesans who support him at the end of Acharnians (1202-03; pi 1240), for the purpose of arousing him for sex; see web address 2.
If one considers the two kisses that Dicaeopolis asks from the pair of courtesans (he uses the second person dual) and the various "types of kisses" listed by lexicographers and in the scholia, it is easy to conclude that most are "technical" terms appropriate to the oral sex "jobs" that are the tools in the trade of prostitutes. Besides mandalwto/s and those explained in the notes below, the following are known:
- peripetasto/s (web address 3, also at Aristophanes, Acharnians 1201; pi 1240) 'spread (open) around'. When Dicaeopolis asks his pair of courtesans to kiss him, he asks one to give a kiss 'bolted-shut on top' (prefix epi-), the other one 'open all around'. He is asking for simultaneous action from the pair.
- a)nemw/nh 'windflower' (Hesychius alpha4882). The windflower, the Greek meaning of anemone, responds to the blowing wind.
- drepto/s 'plucked' (Teleclides fr. 13 Kock, now 14 K.-A.)
- drapeto/s 'runaway'. Also at Hesychius mu224, Photius mu86, and Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey vol.2.223.16. The word is otherwise unknown, either an error for drepto/s (so Dindorf) or a form of (or mistake for) drape/ths 'runaway'.
- gigglumwto/s 'shaft-hinged' (Pausanias the Atticist, *)Attikw=n o)noma/twn sunagwgh/ mu5, Photius mu86). The gi/gglumos (cf. gamma 268) is a particular joint for two pieces of wood which allows them to lie flat or to move perpendicular to each other. Each is shaped to fit into the other, and the hinged joint is pierced by a pin or shaft (also called gi/gglumos) around which they pivot. This kiss appears in various spellings and compounds, perhaps in confusion with a similar word for 'giggle' (which either is onomatopoetically identical with it or derives from it in schoolboy slang; cf. English 'nous' for 'common sense'), gigli/smos, 'a laugh behind the hand' (gamma 267, glossed with kixlismo\s, a)po\ xeirw=n ge/lws, gargalismo/s.
- paida/rios a 'little boy' kiss (Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey. vol.2.223.16).
Some or even all of the above may well apply to mouth-to-mouth kissing. A noisy kiss, e)/myofos (epsilon 1084), clearly applies to either, and kisses thrown in play or from a distance (like the whistles that call a dog or horse) are described with appropriate words, pai=ze, po/ppuze (pi 2058, pi 2059, cf. upsilon 266).
The kiss 'water pitcher' (xu/tra, Eustathius on Homer, Odyssey vol.2.223.16, or xu/tron, chi 620), where the kisser holds the two ears, probably comes from the game xutri/nda (Pollux 9.110, Hesychius), which children played with two-eared, i.e. two-handled, pitchers (xu/trai di/wtoi). If not, it is certainly a mouth-to-mouth kiss!
[1] The adjective qhludriw=dhs is also used by Eustathius (on Homer, Iliad 2.694) of melodies sung by those celebrating victories and other festivals (kwma/zontas). It is formed with the suffix -odes ('shaped') from a noun widely used for effeminate men (see theta 335), apparently a compound meaning "female hydriai (water vessels)," but applied exclusively to hairdressers (assuming that this is the meaning of "hair-moulders"). See also epsilon 1509, theta 381, kappa 2171. Perhaps this is a "hairdresser" kiss. More probably, for the hearer who understands sexual double entendre, it takes the value of its three components, 'female', 'water-pitcher, hydria' and '-shaped'. Notice that such terms are often not understood in their "professional" sense by those ignorant of the sex trade or of minority sexual practices.
[2] See kappa 912 (and cf. kappa 504). The word may be used of a style full of rare words (glosses), but, in relation to a kiss, it clearly refers to the motion of a single tongue (not mingled tongues, as in some ancient definitions) either downwards or beneath.