Etymology
Eunuch comes from the Ancient Greek word εὐνοῦχος (eunoukhos), first attested in a fragment of Hipponax, the 6th century BCE comic poet and prolific inventor of compound words. The acerbic poet describes a particular lover of fine food having "consumed his estate dining lavishly and at leisure every day on tuna and garlic-honey cheese paté like a Lampsacene eunoukhos. "The earliest surviving etymology of the word is from late antiquity. The 5th century (CE) Etymologicon by Orion of Thebes offers two alternative origins for the word eunuch: first, to tēn eunēn ekhein, "guarding the bed", a derivation inferred from eunuchs established role at the time as "bedchamber attendants" in the imperial palace, and second, to eu tou nou ekhein, "being good with respect to the mind", which Orion explains based on their "being deprived of intercourse (esterēmenou tou misgesthai), the things that the ancients used to call irrational (anoēta, literally: mindless)". Orions second option reflects well-established idioms in Ancient Greek, as shown by entries for transl. grc – transl. noos, eunoos and ekhein in Liddell and Scotts Greek-English Lexicon, while the first option is not listed as an idiom under eunē in that standard reference work. However, the first option was cited by the late 9th century Byzantine emperor Leo VI in his New Constitution 98 banning the marriage of eunuchs, in which he noted eunuchs reputation as trustworthy guardians of the marriage bed (eunē) and claimed that the very word eunuch attested to this kind of employment.
Coptic involvement
In the 14th century, the Muslim Egyptian religious scholar Taj-al-Din Abu Nasr Abdal-Wahhab al-Subki discussed eunuchs in his book Kitab Muid al-Niam wa Mubid al-Niqam (Arabic: كتاب معيد النعم ومبيد النقم), a title that has been translated as Book of the Guide to [Divine] Benefits and Averting of [Divine] Vengeance and also as Book of Tutor of Graces and Annihilator of Misfortunes. In a chapter dedicated to eunuchs, Al-Subki made "the clear implication that eunuchness is itself an office," Shaun Marmon explained, adding that al-Subki had specified occupational subgroups for the tawashiya [eunuchs]: the zimam watched over women, and the muqaddam al-mamalik over adolescent boys.Edmund Andrews of Northwestern University, in an 1898 article called "Oriental Eunuchs" in the American Journal of Medicine, refers to Coptic priests in "Abou Gerhè in Upper Egypt" castrating slave boys. Coptic castration of slaves was discussed by Peter Charles Remondino, in his book History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present, published in 1900. He refers to the "Abou-Gerghè" monastery in a place he calls "Mount Ghebel-Eter". He adds details not mentioned by Andrews such as the insertion of bamboo into the victim. Bamboo was used with Chinese eunuchs.