The headword, formally a diminutive, is a neuter noun in the nominative (and accusative) singular; see generally LSJ s.v., where this is sense I.1. (For sense II see pi 1531.) It first appears in a Homeric simile and the entry is generated by that passage: see nn. 1 and 3 below.
[1] The initial gloss is a masculine noun in the nominative singular; cf. alpha 4378, kappa 1837 (gloss), and see generally LSJ s.v. The headword is identically glossed in the Synagoge, Photius' Lexicon (pi864 Theodoridis), Lexica Segueriana 342.25, and the scholia to Homer, Iliad 23.762 (n. 3 below); cf. Hesychius pi2212.
[2] Greek Anthology 6.288.5-7 (attributed to Leonidas of Tarentum): four sisters dedicate spinning and weaving instruments to Athena in order that they may better profit from their craft; see Gow and Page, Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. I, p. 120. Geijer provides a drawing, adapted from a vase painting of c.550 BCE, showing the craft steps involved: carding, spinning, and weaving using the traditional warp-weighted loom (pp. 2-3). [In her critical apparatus Adler notes that ms F transmits the singular polua/rguron, but spa/qas is a Doric accusative plural form.]
The phrase kertasta\s tou/sde potiroge/as is problematic. Gow and Page indeed remark that "these words seem hopeless" and dismiss suggestions from earlier commentators that the epigrammatist refers to the wool-basket (incongruous, given the flow of the poetic text) or the weights (rocks, typically, and so unsuitable items for dedication to the goddess) used on the loom (Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. II, p. 351). It is plausible, however, that kertasta\s might be better read as kera/stas, ones that mix, e.g. mixing bowls, cups, shells, masculine accusative plural form of kerasth/s; see LSJ s.v. The spelling is close, and the case and number corresponds to that of the demonstrative tou/sde, these here. The next word appears to be a compound with poti/, (=pro/s, to, towards, upon, against, an epic and Doric form; see LSJ, and Cunliffe s.v., and Buck, p. 107-8). Leonidas had already used such a neologism earlier in the epigram: potiqu/mia, agreeable (to Athena); Gow and Page, vol. I, p. 120 and vol. II, p. 350). The rest of the compound is reminiscent of r(egeu/s or r(ogeu/s, dyer; see LSJ s.vv. On the importance of dyeing wool within the textile crafts, especially the use of purple extracted from the murex whelk to signify nobility, see Jenkins, pp. 71-76. Thus the mixing implements are probably dye-pots, and these would be respectable items for dedication. It is ultimately uncertain whether the dye-pots have been tainted by the coloring compounds they have held or whether they are dear to the dyers by analogy with the earlier potiqu/mia.
Hermann Beckby in his edition prints Desrousseaux’s emendation kh)rgasi/as tou/sde potirrope/as "and these weights, helpers in their work".
[3] Homer, Iliad 23.762 (web address 1), already at epsilon 571. [This note and the rest of the passage are lacking, Adler reports, in mss AFV but were restored within the margin by the transcriber of Parisinus 2626.]
[4] The verb form is the future indicative middle-passive, third person singular, of e)kphni/zomai, I spin a long thread, I draw out; see generally LSJ s.v. It is quoted from its earliest extant attestation -- Aristophanes, Frogs 578 (web address 2) -- where it is used metaphorically for extracting a confession; again, see epsilon 571.