Etymologically
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Batavus

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [baˈtaː.wʊs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [baˈtaː.vus][1]

Forms

Batāvus (feminine Batāva, neuter Batāvum); first/second-declension adjective[2][3] As a noun, Batāvus m (genitive Batāvī), a Batavian; plural Batāvī, the Batavians.[3][4] Lucan scans the second syllable short, Bătăvī.[3][4]

Etymology

It is the singular and adjective of the people's name Batāvī,[3][2] from Proto-Germanic *Batawjō (“good island”).[1] Köbler compares Proto-Germanic *bataz (“good”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰā̆d- (“good”).[5] Georges describes the Batavi as a people of Celtic origin who had settled an island at the mouths of the Rhine and the Meuse.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The people first appear in Caesar's Gallic War, which names the island of the Batavi.[3][5] Köbler finds the singular noun first in Lucan, who calls the Batavians fierce,[5][4] and the adjective first in Martial.[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Martial calls a hair dye spūma Batāva, “Batavian foam”, in the line mūtat Latiās spūma Batāva comās, “Batavian foam changes Latin hair”;[6][4] elsewhere he speaks of a man who has no “Batavian ear”, that is, a coarse, unrefined one.[6][3] Tacitus uses it of the land and the horsemen of the Batavi,[6] and Silius Italicus and Juvenal have the singular as a collective.[3] Pacatus' panegyric of Theodosius names the land itself Batāvia.[3]

In New Latin it came to mean “Dutch”, of Holland.[4][1]

Timeline

  • c. 50 BC – Caesar names the island of the Batavi.[3][5]
  • 39–65 AD – Lucan uses the singular noun.[5][4]
  • 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses the adjective.[5][6]
  • 98–115 AD – Tacitus speaks of Batavian land and horsemen.[6][5]
  • 389 AD – Pacatus calls the land Batāvia.[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of the Batavi, Batavian.[2][4][3]
  2. (New Latin) Dutch, of Holland.[4][1]

Noun

  1. A Batavian;[3][4][5] (plural) the Batavi, a Germanic people living at the mouths of the Rhine.[3][4][5]
  • Batāvia

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  6. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften