amomum

Forms

amōmum n (genitive amōmī); second declension^[1] It is also spelled amōmon.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἄμωμον (ámōmon, “an Indian spice plant”).^[2][1][4] Beekes calls the Greek word an Oriental loanword and compares κιννάμωμον (kinnámōmon, “cinnamon”).^[5] Köbler too describes it as a loanword from the East.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first citation is Plautus, where someone says ex Arabia tibi attuli tus, Ponto amomum, “I have brought you incense from Arabia, amomum from Pontus”;^[2] Köbler dates it from Sallust.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It names an eastern spice plant, which Georges says grew in India, Media and Armenia, and in the poets in Assyria; a costly fragrant balm was made from its fruit.^[2][3][6] Virgil foretells that Assyrian amomum will grow everywhere, and Ovid says that the phoenix lives on its juice.^[2] Pliny the Elder describes its cluster as coming from an Indian wild vine.^[2] The word is used of the spice itself, as in Virgil, Ovid, Celsus and Columella, and of an unguent containing it, as in Persius, Martial and Juvenal.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus mentions amomum brought from Pontus.^[2][4]
• 86–34 BC – Sallust uses it in his Histories.^[3][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil writes of Assyrian amomum.^[2][4]
• 34–62 AD – Persius uses it of an unguent.^[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An eastern spice plant, amomum.^[2][6]
2. The spice obtained from this plant.^[2]
3. A balm or unguent containing this spice.^[2][3]

Related words

• cinnamōmum

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press