The headword, a neuter noun, is attested only in lexicography. Its earliest appearance, in
Hesychius epsilon4908, is uninformative, as the headword is simply glossed with an even rarer noun (
e)pikoru/fwma, a crowning or culminating element); however, the Suda entry is very similar to later ones, in
Etymologicum Gudianum 505.9 and
Etymologicum Magnum 361.8. The headword appears in quite a different sense in
Eustathius' commentary on
Homer,
Odyssey 8.311, where it stands as a synonym for
kataku/llwma.
Eustathius says that both these forms are attested as Attic by
Aristophanes of
Byzantium↗ (fr. 71 Nauck) in the apparent sense of "deformation" (or the like). These terms are adduced as an explanation for
kullopodi/wn (usually taken as 'club-footed'), Hephaestus's epithet at
Homer,
Iliad 21.331. It is possible that the various forms and meanings associated with the word here and in
Eustathius represent contamination between words derived from the near synonyms
kullo/s and
kolobo/s, which share no recognizable etymological connection.
1cf. kappa 1940. ↩2In Et.Gud and Et.Magn. (see first note above) one finds in this place not just kollou/rion but i)atriko\n kollou/rion ('physician's breadroll'), apparently in reference to a probe, suppository, pessary or salve. See LSJ s.v. kollu/rion (web address 1).