Etymology of Greek agalma, agallō, agallomai

The Greek words agallomai ( = to delight, exult in a thing; + dative) and agalma ( = glory, delight, ornament; image; statue, etc .) have long been etymologically unclear. At least eight hypotheses have been set forth, but none has proved convincing. First, Ahrens (1868: 256) and later Prellwitz (1892: 1) derive agallomai from *mgalio, a reconstructed variant of megalo- ( = big, great). This view is rejected by Schmidt (1895: 152) and treated as highly doubtful by Frisk (1960: 1), while Chantraine (1968: 7) does not even mention it in his list of possible etymologies for agallomai. Except for Prellwitz 1892, Pokomy 1959 is the only etymological work that offers any support to Ahrens’ hypothesis, but due to a confused presentation even this support is far from clear. On p. 366 Pokomy connects agalma with gelaō ( = I laugh) et al., but on p. 708 he connects (’wohl) agalma with megalo-