admissarius

Forms

admissārius (feminine admissāria, neuter admissārium); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin admittō (“to let in, admit”) + -ārius,^[2][3] since the male was admitted to the females for mating;^[1] Wiktionary takes it from the participle admissus.^[1] De Vaan lists it among the derivatives of mittō (“to send”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus,^[4][5] who uses the noun figuratively of a man, telling him he has been a skilful stallion for the mares.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective it described male animals kept for breeding, a horse or an ass, as in Varro;^[2][6] used as a noun it meant a stallion or a breeding male ass, as in Varro and Columella.^[2] It was applied to lustful men, as when Cicero says such a man neighed at a speech, and Seneca too has the figurative use.^[2][3]

Medieval Latin used it for a stallion,^[7] in the Frankish laws among others.^[5] It survives in Romanian armăsar and Sardinian ammessàrzu, and is the source of Albanian hamshor and Welsh amws.^[1][3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it figuratively of a lustful man.^[2][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro speaks of stallions and a male ass kept for breeding.^[2][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero says such a man neighed at a speech.^[2][5]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses the noun for stallions.^[2][5]
• 4th century AD – Chiron speaks of breeding horses.^[3][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a male animal: kept for breeding.^[2][6]

Noun

1. A stallion, or a male ass kept for breeding.^[2][7]
2. (figurative) A lustful man; a sodomite.^[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 h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d 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 e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill