accola

Forms

accola m or f (genitive accolae); first declension^[1] It is also spelled adcola.^[2][3] Glosses and late manuscripts have accula and acola.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin accolō (“to dwell near”), with the noun ending ⟨-a⟩.^[2][3][1] The verb is ad- (“near”) with colō (“to till, inhabit”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *kʷele/o- and Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁-e/o- (“to go round”).^[4] Cognate with Ancient Greek πέλομαι (pélomai, “to move, be”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Plautus,^[5] whose Aulularia lists welcome citizens, fellow countrymen, inhabitants, neighbours and strangers.^[6]

Semantic evolution

It is a person who lives nearby, a neighbour, and with a genitive or dative one who lives beside a place: Virgil's dwellers by the shallow Volturnus, Livy's shepherd living nearby, and Cicero's neighbours of Ceres, those living by her temple.^[2][6] Lewis & Short contrast it with incola, one who lives in a place.^[6] Seneca uses it simply of inhabitants.^[2] Church Latin glosses it sojourner.^[7]

In medieval Latin it is a tenant, free or unfree, whose holding was smaller than a serf's manse, and in the feminine the holding itself.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus in a list of townspeople and neighbours.^[6][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero of the neighbours of Ceres' temple.^[6][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of dwellers by a river.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. One who lives nearby, a neighbour; one who dwells beside a place.^[2][6][1]
2. An inhabitant; in Church Latin, a sojourner.^[2][7]
3. (Medieval Latin) A tenant of free or servile status.^[8]

Related words

• accolō
• incola
• colō
• agricola

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill