anguilla

Forms

anguīlla f (genitive anguīllae); first declension^[1] Plautus has the form anguīla.^[2] Varro is reported to have written it agguila.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is from Latin anguis (“snake”).^[3][2] The OLD analyses it as the base with the diminutive suffix -illus,^[3] while de Vaan derives it from anguīnus (“of a snake”) as *anguīn-lā.^[2] The base goes back to Proto-Italic *angʷi- (“snake”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)ngʷʰ-i- (“snake”).^[2]

Katz analyses it as the snake word and a word illa (“worm”) known from a gloss, which he connects with Ancient Greek ἔγχελυς (énkhelus, “eel”); de Vaan finds this comparison imaginative and rightly rejected by Driessen.^[2] Driessen takes the Plautine form anguīla to be the older one, but de Vaan notes that the origin of the snake word it presupposes is unexplained as well.^[2] Lewis and Short also allow a direct connection with the Greek word for “eel”.^[5] Varro counted it among names of fish taken from land animals with some likeness to them.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Plautus' Pseudolus (747), proverbially, of a man who cannot be held: anguilla est, elabitur, “he's an eel, he slips away”.^[4][7][2]

Semantic evolution

Beside the eel itself, which Pliny the Elder and Juvenal mention,^[5] the hard skin of the eel served as a whip in schools, as Pliny reports from Verrius.^[5] The proverb of the slippery eel described a sly person.^[5][4]

The word stayed in use through the Middle Ages: Bede explains the name of Ely from the many eels caught in its marshes, and British records mention smoked eel.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses the eel proverbially of a slippery man.^[4][9]
• 116–27 BC – Varro lists it among fish named after land animals.^[6][9]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder describes the eel and the eel-skin whip.^[5][9]
• c. 67–c. 127 AD – Juvenal mentions it.^[5][9]
• early 8th century – Bede explains the name of Ely from its eels.^[8][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. An eel.^[3][5]
2. An eel-skin whip, used in schools.^[5]

Usage notes

Anguilla est, elabitur (“he's an eel, he slips away”) was said of a sly man who escapes every hold.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de