The aim of this contribution is to demonstrate that the form μᾶλα ‘sheep’ in Theocritus is not (as is commonly assumed) a hyperdorism, but rather points to an inner-Greek substantivization of an adjective μᾱλός, attested in Theocritus (as an epithet of a goat) and as (Att.-Ion.) μηλός ‘tame’ in the Etymologicum Magnum. Inducing a discussion of the development of the cluster *dm- in Greek, I will propose to reconstruct this adjective as *dm̥₂H-ló- (from *√demH ‘tame, subdue’).