Etymologically
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ancillula

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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]

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