armus

Forms

armus m (genitive armī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *ar(a)mo-, inherited from Proto-Indo-European *h₂erH-mo- (“arm”).^[2] De Vaan prefers this full-grade form, since a zero grade would have given ⟨*ramus⟩ in Latin, but he cannot completely exclude it.^[2] Cognate with Sanskrit ईर्म (īrmá-, “arm, shoulder”) and Old Prussian irmo (“arm”), and with English arm.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler find it first in Plautus,^[2][4] in a fragment where someone says that like a wolf he is strong in the shoulders but has broken haunches.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is the forequarter or shoulder of an animal, as opposed to umerus, the shoulder of a man, and also its side.^[3][5] Horace uses it of a shoulder joint for the table, the forequarters of a pregnant hare.^[3] In poetry it is used of a man's shoulder: Virgil has the exclamation "what a brave breast and shoulders!"^[3] Döderlein describes it as the top of the upper arm in people and the foreleg in beasts, the shoulder as part of the body.^[6] The Mulomedicina Chironis has a third-declension plural armora.^[7] Stelten gives "shoulder" for Church Latin.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a wolf's shoulders.^[3][4]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil of a man's shoulders.^[3]
• 65–8 BC – Horace of a hare's forequarters.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The forequarter or shoulder of an animal; its side; a shoulder joint as food.^[3][5][1]
2. (poetic) The shoulder of a person.^[3][8]

Word family

• armillum

Related words

• armilla
• umerus
• English arm

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
7. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson