Etymologically
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Oasis

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈo.a.sɪs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈɔː.a.s̬is][1]

Forms

Oasis f sg (genitive Oasis); third declension[1] The accusative is Oasim.[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek Ὄασις (Óasis),[3][2][4] a word of Egyptian origin.[4][1] Wiktionary traces the Greek word through Demotic to Egyptian wḥꜣt (“oasis, cauldron”);[1] Lewis & Short and Georges call it Coptic, Georges glossing the Coptic word as “inhabited place”.[3][2] Compare Coptic ⲟⲩⲁϩⲉ (ouahe) and Arabic واحة (wāḥa).[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and Georges record it first in Ulpian (before 223 AD), in the Digest, as the Oasis to which people were banished.[4][2]

Semantic evolution

In Latin it was mostly the name of the Great Oasis in the Libyan desert in Upper Egypt, a place of banishment under the emperors;[6][3][2] Georges also mentions the Little Oasis in Middle Egypt,[2] and Gaffiot describes it as a name given to several places in the desert.[7] Lewis & Short give the general sense of a fertile, inhabited spot in the Libyan desert.[3] Pliny the Elder already has the derived adjective in Oasitae nomi.[3][2]

English took the word in the 17th century as oasis, from French and directly from Latin,[5] and German has Oase.[4]

Timeline

  • before 223 AD – Ulpian names the Oasis as a place of banishment.[2][4]
  • 1610s – English borrows it as oasis, at first of the Libyan desert.[5]
  • by 1800 – The English word is used figuratively of any fertile place in a waste.[5]

Meanings

Proper noun

  1. The Great oasis in the Libyan Desert, a place of banishment under the Roman Empire.[6][3][2]
  2. Any fertile, inhabited spot in the Libyan desert; also the Little Oasis in Middle Egypt.[3][2][7]

Word family

  • Oasēnus
  • Oasītēs

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.