ἀ- + μαζός
Word
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Word-lemma
Transliteration (Word)
English translation (word)
Transliteration (Etymon)
English translation (etymon)
Century
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Ed.
Quotation
ἀμαζὼν ἡ μὴ μάζαις χρωμένη· ἀλλὰ κρέασιν· ἢ ὅτι τὴν μίαν θηλὴν τὴν δεξιὰν ἐνέκαιον· ἵνα μὴ ἐμποδίζωνται τοξεύουσαι·
Translation (En)
Amazon is the one who does not feed on barley-cake but on meat; or because they used to burn out one single breast (thēlē), the right one, not to be impeded from shooting with their bows.
Parallels
Epimerismi homerici, alpha 333 (ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐστερῆσθαι μαζῶν. ἀπίθανος δὲ ἡ τοιαύτη ἐτυμολογία "because they wre deprived of breasts; but such an etymology is unreliable"). Scholia in Aeschylum, Prom. 723e (ἢ ὅτι ἔκαιον τοὺς μαζούς […] ἢ ὅτι μαζὸν οὐκ ἐθήλαζον, ἀλλὰ φοράδων γάλα ἤσθιον οὖσαι νεογναί "or because they use to burn their breasts […] or because they did not breast-feed their babies, but, as newborns, used to eat the milk of female animals").
A variant found in the Etym. Gudianum Additamenta, alpha p. 104, has παρὰ τὸ ἕνα μαζὸν ἔχειν· τὸ γὰρ α ἐνταῦθα τὸ ἓν δηλοῖ "from the fact that they had only one breast, because a- here means «one»".
Comment
This is the most commonly found etymology, the Amazons are the ones "without breasts" because they used to burn out the right breast of female babies so that it could not develop and leave them full liberty of movement in the handling of their weapon, the bow. In the formulation of Orion this does not appear immediately because μαζός is replaced by θηλή "tit". Another explanation, with the same etymon μαζός "breast" is that they did not breast-feed their babies (see Parallels), which is a manner of providing a more likely explanation while keeping the same etymon. A variant is found with the copulative alpha instead of the privative alpha (see Parallels).