But Aristarchus marks the word, whether it means the fruit or the tree, with an acute accent indifferently; while Philoxenus would circumflex the word in either sense. Eupolis says—

You'll ruin me, I swear it by the almond.

Aristophanes says—

A.Come, now, take these almonds,
And break them
(B.I would rather break your head,) with a stone.

And Phrynichus says—

The almond is a good cure for a cough.

And others speak of almonds as beautiful. But Tryphon in his book on Attic Prosody accents ἀμυγδάλη, when meaning

[[87]]the fruit, with a grave accent, which we use in the neuter as ἀμύγδαλον. But he writes ἀμυγδαλῆ, with a circumflex for the tree; it being as it were a possessive form derived from the fruit, and as such contracted and circumflexed.

Pamphilus in his Dictionary says that the μυκηρόβατον is called the nut-cracker by the Lacedæmonians, when they mean the almond-cracker; for the Lacedæmonians call almonds μούκηροι.

41. Nicander mentions also nuts of Pontus, which some writers call λόπιμα; while Hermonax and Timachidas, in the Dictionary, say that the acorn of Jupiter, or walnut, is what is called the nut of Pontus.