Demosthenes in the [speech] Against Timocrates [sc. uses the word].[1] But perhaps, in the Atticizing writers, it is better taken as ναυκρατιτικά ["of Naukratis"], so that [the adjective] would stem from a Naukratite vessel, or Naukratite voyagers. For Naukratis was, of old, a trading-post in Egypt. But if [the correct reading] is Ναυκραρικα , that would be "of the archons"; for long ago they used to call the archons ναύκραροι , as Herodotos shows in [book] five of his Histories.[2]
Perhaps the term ναυκραρικά comes from the tip [κραῖρα ] of a ship [ναῦς ].