Etymologically
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armentum

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [arˈmɛn.tũː][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [arˈmɛn.tum][1]

Forms

armentum n (genitive armentī); second declension[1] The older form is a feminine armenta, in Livius Andronicus, Ennius and Pacuvius.[2][3][4]

Etymology

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *armnto- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂er-mn̥-to-, from the root *h₂er- (“to join, fit”); the OLD analyses it as that root and the suffix -mentum.[3][4][1] He takes arma (“weapons”) and ⟨armentum⟩ as separate formations on that root: arms are what is fitted together, a herd is a grouping.[3] Wiktionary explains the neuter as the older feminine ⟨armenta⟩ taken as a neuter plural.[1] The root is that of Ancient Greek ἀραρίσκω (ararískō, “to fit together”).[3] Varro and Isidore derived it from arō (“to plough”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis and Short cite the older feminine armenta from Livius Andronicus and Ennius,[2] and Köbler lists the Twelve Tables.[5]

Semantic evolution

It is a herd of cattle or horses, as Virgil's herds of oxen and Varro's herd that crops what grows in the field, and an individual head of cattle, a bull, or in Statius a horse.[4] In the plural it is the larger domestic animals in general, as Lucretius' “men, cattle and wild beasts”, and Curtius uses it of a kind of livestock.[4]

Church Latin glosses it “herd, cattle”.[6]

Timeline

  • 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus has the feminine armenta.[2][5]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius of cattle as opposed to men.[4][5]
  • 116–27 BC – Varro of a herd.[4][5]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil of herds of oxen.[4][5]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius of a single horse.[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A herd, drove (of cattle or horses).[4][1][6]
  2. A head of cattle; a bull; a horse.[4][1]
  3. (plural) Cattle, the larger domestic animals; a kind of livestock.[4][1]

Word family

  • armentālis
  • armentārius
  • armenticius
  • armentiuus
  • armentosus

Usage notes

Döderlein counts armenta and iūmenta among the larger domestic beasts, oxen, asses and horses, as against the general word pecus.[7]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  7. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper