secula
English
Noun
secula
- plural of seculum
Anagrams
Latin
Etymology 1
From secō (“to cut, cleave”) + -ula. Mentioned by Varro as a Campanian synonym of falx. The long ē is reconstructed based on the quality of the vowel in Italian segolo[1]: along with tēgula and rēgula, it may display a lengthened grade of the Proto-Indo-European root, although the reason for vowel lengthening in this context is not well understood.[2] Grandgent 1907 views it instead as a phonetic variant of sīcula.[3]
Noun
sēcula f (genitive sēculae); first declension
- (hapax legomenon)[4] a sickle
- 116 BCE – 27 BCE, Marcus Terentius Varro, De Lingua Latina 5.137:
- Falces a farre littera commutata; hae in Campania seculae a secando; a quadam similitudine harum aliae, ut quod apertum unde, falces fenariae et arbor<ar>iae et, quod non apertum unde, falces lumaria<e> et sirpiculae.
- 1938 translation by Roland G. Kent
- Falces ‘sickles,’ from far ‘emmer,’ with the change of a letter; in Campania, these are called seculae, from secare ‘to cut’; from a certain likeness to these are named others, the falces fenariae ‘hay scythes’ and arborariae ‘tree pruning-hooks,’ of obvious origin, and falces lumariae and sirpiculae, whose source is obscure.
- 1938 translation by Roland G. Kent
- Falces a farre littera commutata; hae in Campania seculae a secando; a quadam similitudine harum aliae, ut quod apertum unde, falces fenariae et arbor<ar>iae et, quod non apertum unde, falces lumaria<e> et sirpiculae.
Declension
First-declension noun.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| nominative | sēcula | sēculae |
| genitive | sēculae | sēculārum |
| dative | sēculae | sēculīs |
| accusative | sēculam | sēculās |
| ablative | sēculā | sēculīs |
| vocative | sēcula | sēculae |
Synonyms
Descendants
- Italo-Romance:
- Rhaeto-Romance:
- Friulian: sesule
- → Proto-West Germanic: *sikilu (see there for further descendants)
References
- ^ Ernout, Alfred, Meillet, Antoine (1985) “secula”, in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine: histoire des mots (in French), 4th edition, with additions and corrections of Jacques André, Paris: Klincksieck, published 2001, page 607
- ^ Schrijver, Peter C. H. (1991) The reflexes of the Proto-Indo-European laryngeals in Latin (Leiden studies in Indo-European; 2), Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 127
- ^ Grandgent, C. H. (1907) An Introduction to Vulgar Latin, page 84
- ^ Nielsen, Benedicte (1998) Latinske nomina instrumenti dannet med *-lo-, *-slo- og *-tlo-. Om det indbyrdes slægtskab mellem tre indoeuropæiske nominalsuffikser. (Master's thesis)[1], pages 78-79
- ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “7771. sēcula”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 584
Further reading
- “secula”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- "secula", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
- secula in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
- De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “secō”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 551
Etymology 2
From saeclum.
Noun
sēcula
- nominative/accusative/vocative plural of sēculum