[Meaning] the shavings of [= from] reeds, or spikes.[1]
The intense working-out of particulars is 'splinters': this has an oxytone accent in the nominative but paroxytone in the oblique cases.[2] 'Splinters' therefore are subtleties of speech.[3]
Aristophanes in
Clouds: "I will learn splinters of precise words."[4]
Also [sc. attested is the phrase] "linchpins of splinters":[5] strictly speaking 'splinter' is a shaving around the bark of the reed, and 'linchpins' is like 'dangerous' and 'reckless', as they are dragged around the wheel.
*skinda/lamoi: ta\ tw=n kala/mwn a)pocu/smata, h)\ sko/lopes. h( e)pecergasi/a tw=n a)kribw=n skinda/lamoi: tou=to de\ e)pi\ me\n eu)qei/as o)cu/netai, e)pi\ de\ tw=n plagi/wn parocu/netai. skindala/mous ou)=n leptologi/as. *)aristofa/nhs *nefe/lais: lo/gwn a)kribw=n skindala/mous maqh/somai. kai\ *skindalmw=n paraco/nia: skindalmo\s kuri/ws to\ peri\ to\n floio\n tou= kala/mou ce/sma: paraco/nia de\ oi(=on kindunw/dh kai\ para/bola, peri\ to\n troxo\n e(lko/mena.
The bulk of this entry comes from commentary to the two
Aristophanes passages quoted below. Both within this entry and in the preserved attestations of the headword in general there is much alternation between the variant spellings of the headword noun,
skinda/lamos and
skindalmo/s. Luckily this entry is free from another attested variation between
skinda/lamos-
skindalmo/s and
sxinda/lamos-
sxindalmo/s. (
Moeris sigma50 identifies the latter as an Atticism.)
[1] =
Synagoge sigma123 (with the variant spelling
skindalmoi/);
Photius,
Lexicon sigma333 Theodoridis; for the second gloss cf. ps.-Herodian (
On Orthography 3.2.581),
Hesychius sigma1008.
[2] A curious statement, since the most recently mentioned form of the word,
skinda/lamoi, is nominative and proparoxytone. In general, not just the nominative but all forms of the variant
skindalmo/s are oxytone (apart from genitive and dative plural which are perispomenon), whereas only the oblique forms of the variant
skinda/lamoi (apart from accusative singular) are paroxytone. It is as if the commentator thinks that certain forms of the two variants form a single, hybrid declension.
[3] cf.
scholia to Lucian (67.5 Rabe).
[4]
Aristophanes,
Clouds 130.
[5]
Aristophanes,
Frogs 819, exhibiting essentially the readings of the mss and the
scholia (with metrically inconsequential variations between
sxindala/mwn and
skindalmw=n, etc.). In his OCT Wilson adopts a conjecture of Dover reversing the case of the nouns:
skinda/lamoi te paraconi/wn: "splinters of linchpins".
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