Alkalurops

The IAU catalogue's account

The formation of this name begins with one of the words used by Ptolemy to describe this star in the Almagest: κολλόροβον, "club", rarely used as "sphepherd's staff". This word was transliterated into Arabic as qulurubus, and hence into Latin as calurus. Then in Early Modern times, the derivation of calurus was mistakenly attributed to another Greek word: καλαῦροψ, "shepherd's staff". This erroneous word, in its turn, was transliterated into Latin, then Arabicized with the article al-, then its spelling corrupted, to become "Alkalurops", which was thereafter applied as a star name to μ Boo.

Source language

Latin

Reference

Kunitzsch, Paul; Smart, Tim (2006). A Dictionary of Modern star Names: A Short Guide to 254 Star Names and Their Derivations (2nd rev. ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Sky Pub.

Source: IAU Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN), Working Group on Star Names. The account is the IAU's own text and is quoted in full: it is published under CC BY.