adeps

Forms

adeps m (genitive adipis); third declension^[1] Also spelled adips, as in Pliny the Elder.^[2][3] The gender varies: masculine in Celsus and Pliny, feminine in Varro, Celsus and Columella.^[2]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[4][1] The word is often connected with Umbrian ařepes, a dative-ablative plural that de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *adēpā-.^[4] Meiser considers a form Proto-Italic *ad-leip-a (“sticking onto”), which would have become a Sabellic form with ⟨ř⟩ and been borrowed into Latin, where it was taken for a consonant stem.^[4] Others take it from Ancient Greek ἄλειφα (áleipha, “unguent, oil”), through Etruscan;^[4] the OLD compares the Greek word,^[2] and the TLL thinks the Latin word seems to be drawn from it.^[3] Lewis and Short explain the /d/ as an interchange with /l/.^[5] Weiss, however, finds nothing in the Umbrian texts that ties the Umbrian word to ⟨adeps⟩, so that another etymology would be needed.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it from Cato on.^[4] In the De agri cultura it is lard, an ingredient weighed out in a recipe with cumin and cheese.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it was the soft fat of animals, lard or grease, as opposed to the harder tallow, sēbum,^[2][5] often with the animal named, as pork fat in Varro.^[2] It also meant the fatty tissue of the body, and in the plural corpulence;^[2] Cicero mocks a man's fat with it, and it could be said of a bloated style.^[2] Wiktionary also gives the sense “sapwood”.^[1]

In Christian Latin it took on the biblical sense of the richest or best part of something.^[6] British medieval Latin used it for fat as food or ointment, for cream, and, after the Psalter, for the finest flour.^[7] The MLW records it in the early medieval laws, among them the Lex Frisionum.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it for lard in a recipe.^[2][9]
• 116–27 BC – Varro speaks of pork fat, adeps suilla.^[2][9]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses the plural for a man's corpulence.^[2][9]
• 14–37 AD – Celsus uses it in medicine, both as masculine and as feminine.^[2][9]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of the body fat of animals without horns.^[2][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. Soft animal fat, lard, grease.^[2][5]
2. Fatty tissue in a human or animal body.^[2]
3. (plural) obesity, corpulence;^[2] (figurative) bombast in style.^[2]
4. sapwood.^[1]
5. (Ecclesiastical Latin) The richest or best part; the finest of something.^[6]
6. (Medieval Latin) cream; fine flour.^[7]

Word family

• adipālis
• adipātum
• adipātus
• adipeus
• adipōsus

Usage notes

Lewis and Short contrast adeps, the soft fat of animals, with sēbum, the hard fat or tallow.^[5] The Roman grammarians discussed its gender, which is common.^[5]

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 k l m n o p q Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f 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 e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
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. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de