argilla

Forms

argī̆lla f (genitive argī̆llae); first declension^[1] The spelling argila occurs in Novatian and Venantius Fortunatus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἄργιλλος (árgillos, “white clay, potter's clay”).^[4][2][5][1] Lewis and Short connect the Greek word with ἀργής (argḗs, “white”);^[6] Wiktionary suggests ἀργός (argós) or a Pre-Greek source.^[1]

Isidore of Seville said it was named after Argos, where vessels were first made from it.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first found in Cato,^[2][5][7] as the clay that potters use.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Varro and Columella name it among kinds of earth, and Columella notes that some call the potter's chalk argilla.^[2] Virgil has tenuis argilla, thin clay, where olive groves thrive,^[6][2] and Caesar mentions sling bullets of heated clay.^[6][3] Cicero calls an opponent a little man made of clay and mud, and Horace speaks of modelling anything in wet clay.^[6][3]

Medieval writers in Britain use it of clay and loam for building, of potter's clay and of fuller's earth, and English accounts spell it arcillum or arsillum.^[8] It survives in Italian argilla and Spanish arcilla,^[2][1] and English borrowed it as argil.^[1]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it in his work on farming.^[7][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar mentions sling bullets of clay.^[6][5]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil speaks of thin clay where olives grow.^[6][5]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore derives the name from Argos.^[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. White clay, potter's clay, argil.^[4][6]
2. (Medieval Latin) Clay or loam for building; fuller's earth.^[8]

Word family

• argillāceus
• argillōsus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b 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