aratrum

Forms

arātrum n (genitive arātrī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from arō (“to plough”) with the instrument suffix -trum.^[2][1] De Vaan traces the verb to Proto-Italic *araje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂erh₃- (“to plough”); an inherited noun Proto-Indo-European *h₂erh₃-tro- (“plough”) lies behind Ancient Greek ἄροτρον (árotron, “plough”), Middle Irish arathar (“plough”) and Old Norse arðr (“plough”), but it would have given Latin a short vowel in the second syllable, so the long ⟨ā⟩ of ⟨arātrum⟩ was taken from the verb.^[3][2] Varro explains the name by the plough's breaking up the earth, and Isidore of Seville derives it from ploughing the ground.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan gives Cato as its first author.^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

It is the plough;^[6] Pliny the Elder names Buzyges as its inventor, Virgil Triptolemus, and Virgil describes its parts.^[6] To drive a plough over a city's walls was to raze it (Horace), and a plough marked the bounds of a new town, as Aeneas marks out his city with one.^[6]

Church Latin glosses it “plow”.^[7] In Medieval Latin it is also a measure of arable land, a carucate.^[8]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato.^[3][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of the plough.^[6][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of Aeneas marking out a city with a plough.^[6][5]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of ploughing over a city's walls.^[6][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plough.^[2][1][7]
2. (Medieval Latin) A carucate, a measure of arable land.^[8]

Related words

• arō
• arātor
• arātiō
• arvum

Usage notes

The phrase imprimere arātrum mūrīs, to drive the plough into a city's walls, means to destroy a town utterly;^[6] Virgil's urbem dēsignat arātrō refers to marking a new city's boundary with a plough.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill