Re: Comet

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "S.Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97@...>
wrote:

> Middle English comete, from Old English comta, from Late Latin,

from

> Latin comts, from Greek komts, long-haired (star), comet, from

kom,

> hair. (Bartleby etyma).
>
> What could be the cognate words for 'hair' in other languages? kom-

> in Telugu means a horn.
>
> Thanks.

**********
It's Latin 'cometes' from Greek '(aster) kometes' "hairy star".
'Kome' "hair" is one of those Greek words with no apparent cognates
in other languages.
(Unless the Greeks, during the out-of-India dispersion of the
Indo-Europeans, brought it along from the Telugu, and forgot it
meant "horn", not "hair"?)
Dan