[Meaning] I will make [them] unseemly.
*knuzw/sw: a)prepei=s poih/sw.
The headword form comes from
Homer,
Odyssey 13.401: "and I will darken your two eyes that had been most beautiful". The verb is
knuzo/w, now considered derived from
knuzo/s "dim, bleary-eyed". But scholiasts connected it instead to
knu/w "scratch": it is accordingly defined as "destroy" (i.e. scratch out) by Herodian,
De prosodia catholica p. 444 Lentz (citing
Philoxenus fr. 120 Theodoridis) and Orion [
Author,
Myth],
Etymologicum s.v.
knuzou=n. The
Etymologicum Gudianum s.v.
knuzhqmo/s goes further to
a)xreiou=n "damage, disable".
The Suda's "unseemly" may come from a misunderstanding of
Philoxenus. Theodoridis cites
Philoxenus fr. 120 after the
Etymologicum Genuinum: "some derive
knuzw/sw metaphorically from dogs [cf.
kappa 1890]:
kuno/s >
kunw= >
knuzw=, which is unseemly (
a)prepe/s)." If that is the original text,
Philoxenus meant the derivation was unseemly, and may have been misunderstood as saying that the verb
knuzw= itself meant "unseemly". If that is a misunderstanding, it is early, because Herodian already reads: "some derive it from
kunw=n >
kunw= >
knuzw=, but it is improbable and difficult to restore, from a metaphor from dogs, the unseemliness (
a)prepe/s) of the eyes."
Eustathius,
Commentary on the Odyssey ad loc., has his own derivations of the verb. First he offers "I shall shrivel, I shall make unseemly and shrivelled, like the eyes of sleepers, as they say; some say that dogs' eyes are like that too; hence
knuzou=n looks like it is derived from 'dog'." After citing at length Herodian/
Philoxenus' refutation of a connection with "dog", he also offers a derivation from
knu/za "itch" (i.e.
knu/zw "to itch", since the noun only exists in grammarians): "to be put to shame by mange."
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