acanthus

Forms

acanthus m (genitive acanthī); second declension^[1] The Greek nominative acanthos also occurs, and manuscripts have spellings with ach-.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἄκανθος (ákanthos, “acanthus, bear's-foot”).^[3][4][5][6] The Greek name is usually explained from ἀκή (akḗ, “point, thorn”) and ἄνθος (ánthos, “flower”),^[1][7] and Köbler sets it beside ἄκανθα (ákantha, “thorn, prickle”) and the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂ek̑- (“sharp”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler and the OLD record it from Virgil,^[6][3] who in the Eclogues describes cups with soft acanthus twined round their handles: molli circum est ansas amplexus acantho.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

It is the plant bear's-foot, Acanthus mollis, named by Virgil and Pliny the Elder;^[3][4][2] Pliny distinguishes a prickly and a curled kind.^[3][4][2] Its leaf was a favourite motif in carving and embroidery, as on Virgil's cups, and Virgil also calls the flower saffron-coloured.^[3][2] Pliny the Younger has it in his garden, and Virgil and Calpurnius have its leaves and flowers strewn on the ground on a festive day.^[2]

As a feminine it is also a thorny evergreen tree of Egypt, the gum arabic tree, whose berries Virgil mentions in the Georgics;^[3][4] Velleius Paterculus uses it for the wood of this tree, of which Caesar's Pontic triumph was furnished.^[3][4]

Timeline

• 70–19 BC – Virgil, of the plant, of acanthus carving and of the Egyptian tree.^[3][4][6]
• c. 20 BC–30 AD – Velleius Paterculus, of acacia wood.^[3][6]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder, of its two kinds.^[3][2][6]
• 1660s – English borrows it as acanthus.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Bear's-foot, bear's-breech, a plant of the genus Acanthus.^[3][4][1]
2. The acanthus leaf as an ornament in carving or embroidery.^[3]
3. (feminine) The gum arabic tree, an acacia of Egypt; its wood.^[3][4][1]

Related words

• English acanthus

Usage notes

Acanthus, feminine, is also the name of a town in Chalcidice in Macedonia, found in Livy, Mela and Pliny the Elder.^[3][4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
6. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com