astragal

History and Etymology for astragal

borrowed from French & Latin; French astragale, going back to Middle French, borrowed from Latin astragalus, borrowed from Greek astrágalos "neck vertebra, ball of the ankle joint, (in plural) dice made from the talus bones of hoofed animals, molding in the capital of an Ionic column," of uncertain origin

Note: Traditionally, Greek astrágalos has been derived from a presumed suffixed form (*h₂est-r̥-g-) of a heteroclitic Indo-European stem *h₂est-r-/h₂est-n-, formed from the base *h₂ost- "bone" (see osseous); cf. astakós/ostakós "lobster, crayfish," allegedly from *h₃esth₁-n̥-ko- (see astaxanthin). The velar suffix has been compared with Sanskrit ásṛk, genitive asnáḥ "blood." Beekes, however, objects that a formation *ost-r-k- + a suffix -al- scarcely looks Indo-European, and that, like astakós/ostakós, the word is of substratal origin (Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2010; The Development of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals in Greek, Mouton, 1969, p. 51). See also ostracon, oyster.