Note 292 — Chapter V · THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.
Reading edition
Derived from ὄρος, οὖρος (mountain), or from Ὀρείος, the discoverer. Metallic names in Greek are mostly masculine; in Latin and modern usage, neutral. Oreichalcum or aurichalcum, a hybrid word, became aurochalcum in the ninth century: the last corruption (middle of the sixteenth century) was archal.