Siren

Forms

Sīrēn f (genitive Sīrēnis); third declension^[1] The genitive is Sīrēnis or, in the Greek form, Sīrēnos;^[2] Pliny has the spelling Ser- for the drone.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek Σειρήν (Seirḗn).^[1][3][4] The origin of the Greek word is unclear.^[4] Beekes notes that it can formally be compared with σειρά (seirá, “rope, cord”), as “the ensnaring one”, or with Σείριος (Seírios), but that a Pre-Greek or Mediterranean origin has also been argued.^[5] Late Latin also had the form Sīrēna.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero, in De finibus (5.49), speaks of the Sirens in the plural, the singers who lured sailors to their death.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

The Sirens were imagined as birds with the faces of maidens, living on the south coast of Italy, whose sweet voices drew passing sailors ashore to be killed.^[3] The rocks of the Sirens, scopuli Sirenum, were three small islands off the coast of Campania.^[3][8] The name became a figure for sweet or deceitful song: Suetonius quotes a verse calling the grammarian Cato a “Latin Siren”.^[2][8] Pliny the Elder uses the word, in the form Ser-, for a kind of drone in the hive,^[2] as Aristotle had used the Greek word for a wild bee.^[2][5]

In the Vulgate the Sirenes of Isaiah's ruined shrines are taken by Lewis & Short as owls or ostriches.^[3] In Late Latin the word came to mean a mermaid or sea nymph,^[1][6] and an Old English gloss renders it with meremenne.^[6] A medieval bestiary describes Sirens as human down to the navel and bird-like below, singing a very sweet song.^[6] English took the word as siren in the mid-14th century, from Old French and directly from Latin.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero speaks of the Sirens.^[2][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil names the rocks of the Sirens.^[3][4]
• 43 BC–AD 18 – Ovid tells their story in the Metamorphoses.^[3][4]
• AD 23/24–79 – Pliny the Elder uses it for a kind of drone.^[2][4]
• AD 390–406 – The Vulgate has Sirenes among the creatures in ruined shrines.^[3][4]
• AD 639–709 – Aldhelm mentions the Sirens.^[6][4]
• mid-14th century – English borrows it as siren.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (mythology) A siren, one of the bird-like singers who lured sailors to their death.^[2][3]
2. (figurative) A type of sweet or deceitful song; a charmer: Latīna Sīrēn.^[2][8]
3. A kind of drone in a beehive.^[2][1]
4. (Late Latin) A mermaid, sea nymph.^[1][6]

Related words

• English siren

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f 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
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn