δρῖλος

• δρεῖλος (dreîlos)

Unknown. Beekes calls connections to δρίος (dríos, “thicket”), in the sense of "swelling," a "mere guess." Pokorny suggests the latter connection and also compares δριμύς (drimús, “piercing, sharp”), Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to flay, split open”).^[1]

Has been compared to δρίλαξ (drílax, “leech”), with a meaning "earthworm" mediating between "penis" and "leech". The "worm"-meaning has then been used to explain κροκόδειλος (krokódeilos, “lizard”). If the "verpus = penis without foreskin"-meaning is primary, one could adduce Old English teors (“penis”) from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to flay, split open”).^[2]
The meaning "earthworm" was adopted in Bailly and Pape, and thus made its way into taxonomic nomenclature with Drilus and Eudrilus.

δρῖλος • (drîlos) m (genitive δρῑ́λου); second declension

1. verpus
2. (conjectured meaning) earthworm

• drilosphere

• “δρῖλος”, in Liddell & Scott (1940), A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• δρῖλος in the Diccionario Griego–Español en línea (2006–2026)
• Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 10), with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN
• Petersson, Herbert (1926), “Armenische Etymologien”, in Indogermanische Forschungen‎^[2] (in German), volume 43, number 1, page 78 of 69–79