Saturn

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English saturne,^[2] inherited from Old English Sætern,^[3] borrowed from Latin Sāturnus,^[4][5][6][2] an ancient Roman god commonly identified with Ancient Greek Κρόνος (Krónos), and the name of the planet.^[4][6] Etymonline, Hoad and Klein allow an Etruscan origin for the Latin name.^[3][5][6] Klein and Etymonline reject as folk etymology the old derivation from serere (“to sow”), as "the god of sowing",^[6][3] which Weekley still gave as a possibility.^[7] Compare French Saturne.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Roman god: in early Old English, in King Ælfred's translation of Boethius.^[4] The planet appears in the same period, in Ælfric's Interrogationes Sigewulfi,^[4] and Ælfred's Boethius calls it Saturnes steorra (“Saturn's star”), the cold star.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Saturn was above all a god of agriculture,^[4][8] popularly believed, in the words of the Century Dictionary quoted by Etymonline, to have taught farming to the people of Italy, in a reign the poets sang as the golden age.^[3] As the most distant planet then known,^[3][9] it was thought by astrologers to cause melancholy, dullness and severity, as Johnson (1755) records;^[9] the adjective saturnine preserves this.^[10][3] Alchemists used the name for lead, a sense found in Medieval Latin from the 13th century and in English from Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale;^[4][3][5][7] it survived in the names of lead compounds.^[4] Heraldry borrowed it for the tincture sable from 1572, in the fanciful blazon of sovereign houses.^[4] Etymonline adds that the Akkadian name of the planet meant "constant, enduring".^[3]

Timeline

• Old English – the Roman god; the planet.^[4]
• c. 1405 – the metal lead, in Chaucer (composed about 1395).^[4]
• 1572 – the tincture sable, in heraldry.^[4]
• 1590 – in a name for lead acetate.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sixth planet from the sun, the second-largest in the solar system, known for its large system of rings.^[4][2][8]
2. In Roman religion and mythology, an ancient god of agriculture, identified with the Greek Cronus.^[4][8]
3. In alchemy, the metal lead; now historical.^[4][2]
4. In heraldry, the tincture sable; now historical and rare.^[4]

Word family

• Saturnian
• saturnine
• saturnism
• Saturnalia

Related words

• Saturday
• Cronus
• Jupiter
• Neptune

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press