This compositional etymology can be read in two different ways. The first reading is that the etymon is πατέω "to tread": the formal evolution is explained in the second part of the first sentence, the word first undergoes a metathesis of the consonants [p] and [t], then the insertion of a consonant [r]. However, there is another verb meaning "to tread", which is less usual, τραπέω. And this leads to the second reading: πατέω may be an elliptic etymology where the real etymon, τραπέω, is replaced by a more usual synonym πατέω, and the complete formulation would be ἀτραπός […] εἴρηται παρὰ τὸ <τραπῶ, ὅ ἐστι> πατῶ καὶ κατ’ ἐπίτασιν τοῦ α, ἡ ἄγαν πατουμένη. In that case, the formal explanation would have been added afterwards by someone who no longer understood that this was an elliptic etymology and who sought to explain how from πατέω one can derive ἀτραπός. As a matter of fact, τραπέω is consistently assumed as the etymon of ἀτραπός "trampled", applying to wine (see Parallels): it is the same word, although of course Greek scholars saw in ἡ ἀτραπός (ὁδός) and ὁ ἀτραπός (οἶνος) two different words.