The story
- Ancient Greek · derived fromσκυτάλη“club, baton, cylinder used for encoding and decoding”
- Latin · borrowed fromscytale“cylinder used for encoding and decoding”
- English todayscytale
From Latin scytale (“cylinder used for encoding and decoding”), from Ancient Greek σκυτάλη (skutálē, “club, baton, cylinder used for encoding and decoding”).
Words from the same roots
Latinscytale all →
scytalone
Ancient Greekσκυτάλη all →
scytalinidscytalone
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.