JM: Different meanings can be found
for "Kinbote" and VN didn't intend to use nor had knowledge
of them all.
He must have started with only one of these meanings (say, indenization or
wergeld, as in J&H) and later he had Kinbote plant misleading clues, such as a "Danish styletto",
a Shakespearean "bodkin".
Or he may have begun with a
Shakesperean bodkin ( he did use very special words and wordplays that
came from Hamlet in "Bend Sinister"...) and came to "kinbote"
with no conscious reference to J&H...
PS: A very common verb in Portuguese,
"botar" ( Ant.French "botter", of germanic origin, as my
unsophisticated dictionary informs ) means "to add,
put,lay". It is also
commonly applied to sharp edges of knives and similar
cutting instruments, as in bodkin?.
Nevertheless here it
mainly indicates the action of unsharpening, turning blunt (
botar, embotar) or making hazy, diffuse,faded (desbotar) .