The word is parsed as a compound including the privative particle νη- at the end of the word instead of the beginning: this is explained in the Etym. Gudianum (see Parallels). It is a descriptive etymology: the animal's name is supposedly derived from one of its characteristic features, the lack of speed. However, κέλλω does not mean "to move", but "to push forward, to drive on, to drive ashore", transitive, and secondarily "to come ashore" (speaking about a boat or a crew), intransitive: this etymology relies on an intransitive meaning “to move (oneself)" which does not match the attested intransitive meaning of κέλλω: such cases show that Greek etymologists did not pay attention to diathesis as a discriminating feature. The etymology implies also a phonetic manipulation, a secondary aspiration of the initial velar stop [k] > [kh], which is not commented upon.