adiumentum
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Pronunciation
Forms
adiūmentum n (genitive adiūmentī); second declension[1] It is also spelled adjūmentum.[1][2]
Etymology
It is from Latin adiuvō (“to help”) + -mentum, contracted from ⟨*adiuvāmentum⟩.[3][2][4] The verb is from ad- and iuvō (“to help”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *ijow- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁i-h₁euH- (“to help”).[5] Cognate with Sanskrit अवति (ávati, “helps, protects”).[5]
Earliest recorded meaning
Its first example in the Thesaurus is in Plautus' Epidicus;[4] Terence says of a girl that she had nothing to help her beauty.[2]
Semantic evolution
It is a means of help, aid, support or assistance, as in Cicero's esse alicui magno adiumento “to be a great help to someone”.[3][2] Church Latin glosses it “help, assistance, aid”.[6]
Timeline
- c. 250–184 BC – Plautus.[4][7]
- 190–159 BC – Terence of what helps beauty.[2][7]
- 81–43 BC – Cicero.[2][7]
Meanings
Noun
Related words
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ 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
- ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
- ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de