Etymologically
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armifer

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈar.mɪ.fɛr][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈar.mi.fer][1]

Forms

armifer (feminine armifera, neuter armiferum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er)[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin arma (“weapons”) + -fer (“bearing”).[2][3][1] De Vaan traces arma to Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)r-mo- (“fitting”), from the root meaning “to join”: its meaning moved from what is fitted together, or tools, to weapons.[4] The second part comes from ferō (“to carry”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰer-.[1][3] Cognate with Ancient Greek ἁρμόζω (harmózō, “to fit together”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis & Short suggest that Ovid was the first to use it,[5] and the TLL and Köbler date it from him;[3][6] he speaks of the crow hated by armifera Minerva, “armed Minerva”.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

It is a poetic word.[3] It first means bearing arms, armed, warlike, as an epithet of Mars and of Minerva.[2][5] Statius applies it to anger, “warlike rage”, and so it comes to mean of war, martial.[2] In Seneca's Medea it describes a field that produces armed men.[2]

Timeline

  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid, of Minerva and Mars.[2][5][6]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca, of a field that yields armed men.[2][6]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius, of warlike anger.[2][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Bearing arms, armed, warlike;[2][5][1] deus armifer, Mars;[2][5][1] dea armifera, Minerva.[2][5][1]
  2. Of war or fighting, martial.[2]
  3. Producing armed men.[2]

Usage notes

Lewis & Short distinguish it from armiger, which mainly means an armour-bearer and only rarely “warlike” in place of armifer.[5] Manuscripts waver between the two words in Seneca and Statius.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de