What is the best Greek word for a thrown knife?

Question

In the Netflix show The Umbrella Academy, one character has a limited form of telekinesis: he can manipulate the movement of knives that he throws.

If I wanted to give this ability a pretentious Greek name, along the lines of pyrokinesis (manipulating fire) and cryokinesis (manipulating ice), what would be a good root to use? LSJ lists several different words for knives, but I'm unclear on the differences, or if the Greeks ever used thrown knives as a weapon.

(If there's no classically-attested word for this, is there an Ancient ancestor of a Modern word for a thrown knife? I know far less about Greek knife usage than I would need to answer this.)

Answer 1

μάχαιρα means "knife, dirk, dagger, short sword". It seems more suitable for your purpose than φάσγανον or ξίφος, both of which mean "sword" rather than "knife". (There is ξιφίδιον, a diminutive of the latter word, which does mean "small sword or knife", but using a diminutive in a compound is a bit unwieldy.) So machaerokinesis might fit the bill.

(To be really pedantic, for the second part of the compound it might be more fitting to use a form of εὐθύνω "guide, direct" instead of κινέω "move", since the ability is that of directing a knife which you've already set in motion, rather than simply moving a knife, which most of us ordinary mortals can do. But machaereuthynsis is a mouthful.)

Answer 2

OK, let's fit a spline all the way to the sublimely ridiculous.

The disk-thrower is discobolus, δισκοβόλος, with activity noun δισκοβολία.

In my sense, the best slayer-knife word is φάσγανον, and its expert thrower φασγανοβόλος, so "fasganobolus" indulging in notional "fasganoboly"?

There might be incidental insights at the top level of the Ancient Greek WP project.

See if κοπίς came close.

Answer 3

How about κοπίβολος? But κοπίς is a curved knife, so possibly not very good for throwing. We might also construct ῥιψακινάκης by analogy with ῥίψασπις, one who throws away his shield in flight.