acetabulum

Forms

acētābulum n (genitive acētābulī); second declension^[1] The spelling acitabulum is found in Marcellus' medical work and in writers on measures.^[2]

Etymology

It is from Latin acētum (“vinegar”) + -bulum, originally a vessel for vinegar,^[3][1][2] as Isidore already explains.^[4] De Vaan lists acētum and the noun among the derivatives of aceō (“to be sour”), which he traces to Proto-Italic *akēje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h2eḱ-eh1- (“to be sharp”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan dates it from Cato,^[5] whose farm manual uses it as a measure: an acētābulum of melanthium ground up in a hemina of old wine.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It was a small cup, originally for vinegar:^[3][4] Varro lists it with dishes and salt cellars, and Quintilian notes that people call any such vessel an acētābulum, whatever it holds.^[3] Seneca mentions the cups and pebbles of conjurors, whose very trickery delights him.^[3] As a measure it was a quarter of a hemina, fifteen drachmas by Pliny the Elder's reckoning.^[3][4]

Pliny the Elder also uses it for cup-shaped things in nature: parts of plants, such as the flowers of the nettle, the suckers on the arms of a polyp, and the socket of the hip joint.^[3] The Vulgate uses it for cups and bowls, silver ones among them.^[4][6] British medieval writers use it for a cup, especially for offerings, for a liquid measure, for the hip socket and for a kind of cymbal,^[7] and Niermeyer also gives the sense cymbal.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it as a measure in his farm manual.^[3][9]
• 116–27 BC – Varro lists it among small dishes.^[3][9]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca mentions the cups of conjurors.^[3][9]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it for the suckers of a polyp and the hip socket.^[3][9]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate uses it for silver bowls.^[4][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small cup (originally for vinegar).^[3][4]
2. A measure of capacity, a quarter of a hemina.^[3][4]
3. A cup-shaped part of a plant.^[3]
4. A sucker of a polyp.^[3]
5. The socket of the hip joint, the acetabulum.^[3][1]
6. (Ecclesiastical Latin) A dish, bowl.^[6]
7. (Medieval Latin) A kind of cymbal.^[8][7]

Word family

• acētābulōsus

Related words

• acētum
• aceō
• acidus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 p Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b 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
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de