februum

• februm

Perhaps from Proto-Italic *feɣʷrwom (“belonging to an offering, means of purification”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰégʷʰrwom, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰógʷʰrus (“belonging to a burning, an offering”), from *dʰegʷʰ- (“to burn, warm”), cognate with febris.

Varro mentions that the alternative form "februm" derives from the Sabines. This etymology is likely false; the term likely has Latino-Faliscan origins due to the morpheme *-br-, whereas in Sabellic it would have been *-fr-. Throughout Roman literature, the term is associated with the distant past; authors routinely mention that it was used by the "ancients." It is likely that Varro was compelled to provide Sabine origins for the term due to their connection with Rome's mythological past. Instead, the term may simply have been an archaic Latin word. It was often used within a religious context and religious terminology can be archaizing.

februum n (genitive februī); second declension

1. (rare) means of purification, expiatory offerings
   • 8 CE, Ovid, Fasti 2.19-23:

     Februa Romani dixere piamina patres: nunc quoque dant uerbo plurima signa fidem. pontifices ab rege petunt et flamine lanas, quis ueterum lingua februa nomen erat

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • c. 2nd century, Sextus Pompeius Festus, De Verborum Significatione 76L:

     Quaecumque denique purgamenti causa in quibusque sacrificiis adhibentur, februa appellantur.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Ovid claims that in the "language of the ancients" ("veterum lingua") the term referred to woolen cloths given by the King and the Flamen to the Pontiffs. He also states the term referred to instruments of purification ("piamina").

Second-declension noun (neuter).

• Februa
• Februārius
• februamentum
• februō

• “februum”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• februum in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “februum”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper’s Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “februum”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• Pokorny, Julius (1959) Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Indo-European Etymological Dictionary] (in German), volume 1, Bern, München: Francke Verlag, page 269
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “februum”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 208
• Annie Cecilia Burman (24 March 2018) De Lingua Sabina: A Reappraisal of the Sabine Glosses‎^[1], →DOI, pages 64-66