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[451] ὄροφον, unanimously explained by the ancients as ‘a sort of reed used for thatching.’ The word recurs elsewhere only in the sense of ‘roof’ (see L. and S., but the ease with which the two senses might be interchanged is sufficiently illustrated by our own word ‘thatch,’ properly ‘roof’ (Dach), but restricted in use to a particular covering with reeds or straw; we can translate they thatched it with downy thatch gathered from the meadows, without feeling any need to discuss whether ‘thatch’ means ‘a roof’ or ‘a kind of reed.’ That “ὄροφος” was a specific name for a kind of reed is highly improbable, though Aristotle and Theophrastos seem to have taken it so; it means neither more nor less than ‘roofing.’

The Iliad, edited, with apparatus criticus, prolegomena, notes, and appendices. Walter Leaf. London. Macmillan. 1900.

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