arboretum

Forms

arborētum n (genitive arborētī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin arbor (“tree”) + -ētum, with the suffix for a place where plants grow.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The historian Claudius Quadrigarius wrote of “valleys and large plantations of trees”, in the 1st century BC.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Aulus Gellius quotes that sentence and remarks that arboreta is the less noble word and arbusta the more usual one;^[2][5] Classical Latin otherwise used arbustum.^[5][6] The Polish medieval dictionary notes that apart from Gellius it is not found in ancient authors.^[7]

It became common again in medieval charters, for a grove or an orchard.^[8][9] The MLW records it in a charter of 807,^[9] and British documents of the 13th and 14th centuries have the Romance-shaped form albareda.^[10] It lives on in Italian albereto,^[11][10] Italian arboreto and Romanian arboret.^[12][1] English took it as arboretum in 1838 for a garden of trees.^[3]

Timeline

• 1st century BC – Claudius Quadrigarius uses it of plantations of trees.^[2][4]
• c. 165 AD – Aulus Gellius calls it a less noble word than arbusta.^[2][5][4]
• 807 – An early medieval charter records it.^[9]
• 1251 – It appears in a Polish charter.^[7]
• 1289 – A document in the Gascon rolls has the form albareda.^[10]
• 1838 – English borrows it as arboretum.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A plantation of trees, a place grown with trees.^[2][5]
2. (Medieval Latin) A grove, orchard.^[8][9]

Related words

• arbustum
• English arboretum

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c 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. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Lexicon mediae et infimae Latinitatis Polonorum (1953–), Kraków: Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN; electronic ed. elexicon.scriptores.pl
8. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b c 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
11. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
12. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier