ancillula

Forms

ancillula f (genitive ancillulae); first declension^[1][2]

Etymology

It is from Latin ancilla (“maidservant”) + -ula,^[1][3] a diminutive of a word that is itself a diminutive in form.^[2][4] ancilla belongs with the old word anculus (“servant”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *ambi-k(w)olo- and Proto-Indo-European *h2mbhi-kwolh1-os (“going around, attending”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Plautus has it first,^[3][6] for a young slave girl: in the Casina a little maid is to be handed over against a speaker's will to a farm overseer.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The TLL notes that the word lived on through nearly the whole of Latinity, that it was a favourite of the comic poets and that epic poets avoided it.^[6] Terence, Ovid, Livy and Seneca use it of young slave women,^[2][6] and Quintilian notes that on the comic stage slaves, maids, parasites and fishermen move more quickly than old men and matrons.^[6]

Cicero used it figuratively: in On the Orator a speaker attaches knowledge of the law to eloquence “like a little handmaid and attendant”, and in On Ends Cleanthes is said to have pictured the virtues standing ready as handmaids to Pleasure.^[2][6] Jerome and the Vulgate kept the plain sense; in Esther a weary head is laid on a maid.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Casina and the Menaechmi.^[6][3]
• 190–159 BC – Terence uses it in several comedies.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it figuratively of law as the handmaid of eloquence.^[2][6]
• 59 BC–17 AD – Livy uses it in his account of the freedwoman Hispala Fecenia.^[6]
• c. 35–95/96 AD – Quintilian names the maids of comedy among its quick-moving characters.^[6]
• c. 383–419/420 AD – Jerome uses it in his letters.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young female slave, a little maidservant.^[1][2]
2. (figurative) A handmaid, something subordinate to another.^[2][4]

Related words

• ancilla

References

1. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften