amuletum

Forms

amulētum n (genitive amulētī); second declension^[1] The spelling amolētum also occurs.^[2][3]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[3][1][4] The OLD suggests, with a “perhaps”, that it is from Latin amylum (“starch”) with the suffix -ētum;^[2] Wiktionary reports Watkins's view that it first meant a medicine containing starch.^[1] Wiktionary also compares āmōlior (“to remove, repel”) and Ancient Greek ἀμύνω (amúnō, “to ward off”),^[1] and Georges connects it with the same verb, as a means of turning away harm.^[5] Lewis and Short took it from Arabic,^[6] an origin the OED rejects according to Etymonline.^[4]

The grammarian Charisius reports that Varro used the word, deriving it either from molliō (“to soften”), in the sense of breaking the force of evil, or from aemulātiō (“rivalry”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first known user is Varro, in the thirteenth book of his work on the divine antiquities, as Charisius quotes him;^[3] the earliest surviving texts with the word are in Pliny the Elder, who uses it of an object worn as a charm against evil.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Pliny the Elder uses it often, for plants, stones and animal parts that are carried or hung up to keep off harm: the whole East, he says, wears jaspers as amulets, and amber is tied on children for the same reason.^[3] He also extends it to an act that wards off evil, such as spitting into one's own urine, and to the power of averting harm, as when he credits basilisk blood with remedies against poisoning.^[2]

Charisius glosses it with the Greek φυλακτήριον (phulaktḗrion),^[3][5] and the glossaries give the spelling amoletum.^[3] The word lived on in Ecclesiastical and Neo-Latin, where Agrippa and Kircher use it of amulets and talismans,^[7][8] and English borrowed it in the 15th century as amulet.^[4]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro uses the word, according to Charisius.^[3][9]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of charms, acts and powers that avert evil.^[2][3][9]
• c. 362 AD – Charisius equates it with Greek phylacterion.^[3][9]
• mid-15th century – English borrows it as amulet.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. An object worn or kept as a charm to avert evil, an amulet.^[2][6][10]
2. An act that averts evil.^[2]
3. The power of averting evil or harm.^[2]
4. (New Latin) An amulet, talisman.^[8]

Related words

• English amulet

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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Ramminger, Johann, Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, www.neulatein.de
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
10. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.