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The name of More's character Hythlodaeus in Utopia has been explained in various ways. While there is no doubt that the first element derives from the Greek hythlos which means "nonsense", the second element is harder to interpret. * In what is now the standard edition by Surtz and Hexter, a preference is expressed for G.J. Vossius' view that it comes from daios, "cunning" CWA: 301). Surtz and Hexter also mention H. Brockhaus' idea that More had in mind the root of daiomai, "burn", with the meaning "ardent". As they imply, this is less plausible.
But there are difficulties with the other proposal, because the normal meaning of the word daios in Greek is "hostile, destructive". "Cunning" is found only in a dubious passage of Plutarch's Moralia (1097C, quoting Epicurus) and in an epigram in the Greek Anthology (16.1 19). In the Plutarch passage most editors remove it with a plausible...