Cerealis

Forms

Cereālis (neuter Cereāle); third-declension two-termination adjective^[2][3] Also spelled Ceriālis and Caereālis.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin Cerēs (“Ceres, goddess of corn”) + -ālis.^[1][4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Plautus, in whose Menaechmi someone gives Ceriālīs cēnās, dinners fit for the festival of Ceres.^[2][5][4]

Semantic evolution

Its first sense is “of Ceres, sacred to Ceres”: Virgil calls the poppy Cereāle papāver, and Ovid speaks of a grove and rites of Ceres.^[2][3][6] Plautus' dinners were lavish ones, like those of her festival.^[3][7][8] By metonymy it came to mean “of corn, of wheat”, and then “of bread”:^[2][3] Virgil has a stalk of wheat, the implements for grinding and baking (Cereālia arma) and a layer of bread under food (Cereāle solum).^[2][5][3] Pliny the Elder seems to use it of breezes that ripen figs.^[2]

Julius Caesar first appointed the aedīlēs Cereālēs to look after the corn supply of Rome.^[2][7] Members of colleges devoted to Ceres were called Cereālēs in inscriptions,^[2][9] and Jerome uses the word for people who run about here and there, like Ceres looking for her daughter.^[7]

Medieval British glossaries render caereālia arma as baking implements.^[10] English cereal (1818 as an adjective) comes from it through French.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus speaks of dinners fit for the festival of Ceres.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of Ceres' poppy, of wheat and of bread.^[2][3][4]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of a grove and rites of Ceres.^[3][6][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of ripening breezes.^[2][4]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses the noun for people who rush about.^[7][4]
• 1818 – English cereal is recorded as an adjective, from French.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of, belonging to or sacred to Ceres.^[2][3][6]
2. Fit for the festival of Ceres; lavish.^[2][3][7]
3. Of wheat or corn; used in growing or preparing wheat.^[2][3]
4. Of bread; of food generally.^[2][5]
5. aedīlis Cereālis, an aedile in charge of the corn supply.^[2][7][3]
6. Ripening (of breezes).^[2]

Noun

1. (masculine plural) Members of a college devoted to Ceres.^[2][9]
2. (Late Latin, masculine plural) People who rush about.^[7]

Related words

• Cerēs
• Cereālia
• English cereal

Usage notes

As a cognomen, Cereālis was the name of men in Tacitus and Martial,^[6][3] and Wiktionary notes the consul Gaius Anicius Cerialis.^[1] The calendar of the Fasti Vaticani marks the lūdī Ceriālēs on 12 April; the festival itself is the Cereālia.^[9] Medieval Latin also had an unrelated cēreālis, from cēra “wax”, for a church tributary who paid his dues in wax.^[12][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
7. ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Simpson, D. P. (1959), Cassell's New Latin Dictionary, London: Cassell
9. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill