ansa

Forms

ānsa f (genitive ānsae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *ansā- (“handle”), inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ens-h₂- (“handle, grip”).^[2] Cognate with Lithuanian ąsà (“handle of a pot”) and Latvian ùosa (“handle of a pot”), and, with other suffixes, Ancient Greek ἡνία (hēnía, “reins”) and Old Norse æs (“hole for shoe-strings”).^[2][3] De Vaan rejects an older link with a root meaning "to grab", which is now reconstructed in a form that cannot give the Latin noun.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler find it first in Plautus,^[2][4] who in the Persa uses it figuratively: a man is looking for a handle, an excuse to undo the deal.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Its basic sense is the handle of a cup, jar or similar vessel: Cato warns not to fill amphorae above the level of the lowest handles, and Virgil and Ovid use it of cups.^[3][5] It is also the handle of a door, as in Petronius, and a ship's tiller.^[3][1] In technical writers it is the free end of a rope (Vitruvius), a loop on a bandage (Celsus), and a clamp, the hook of a steelyard or a fish hook: Vitruvius has wall faces bound with iron clamps and lead.^[3] Figuratively it is an opening or opportunity, as in Plautus and often in Cicero.^[3][5] Stelten gives "opportunity, occasion, handle" for Church Latin.^[6] The Appendix Probi censures the spelling asa: ansa nōn asa,^[7][8] and the TLL notes Spanish asa and Portuguese aza as descendants of that form.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a handle for an excuse.^[3][4]
• 234–149 BC – Cato of the handles of amphorae.^[3][7]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius of rope ends and clamps.^[3]
• before 66 AD – Petronius of a door handle.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A handle (of a cup, jar or other vessel); the handle of a door; a tiller.^[3][5][1]
2. The free end of a rope; a loop; a clamp, the hook of a steelyard, a fish hook.^[3]
3. (figurative) An opening, handle, opportunity.^[3][5][6]

Word family

• ansatus
• ānsula

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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 e f g h i j k l m Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ Appendix Probi, a late antique list of correct and censured Latin word forms ("calida non calda"); ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini IV, Leipzig 1864, 197–199.