κακός and καλός

While the conventional derivation of the Greek adjective κακός from the Lallwort base of Lat. cacāre must be rejected, a connection with Av. kasu-, as proposed by Hübschmann and de Lamberterie, successfully accounts for the irregular grades of comparison κακίων and κάκιστος. For morphological and semantic reasons, one may however also consider an alternative connec-tion with the PIE verbal root *kenk- ‘hang, hesitate’. In either case, the thematisation of κακός from an older u stem form *κακύς must have started in the neuter plural and involved some analogical remodelling. A similar pathway was followed by Greek καλός, for which no satisfactory etymology has been available so far. Here too, the grades of comparison καλλίων and κάλλιστος point the way to a new analysis, by which the underlying root can be identified as PIE *klew- ‘hear’; and it is conceivable that an Italic cognate of καλός is indirectly attested in the Latin gentilicia Cluvius/Cluilius/Cloelius.