Etymologically
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arvum

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Forms

arvum n (genitive arvī); second declension[1]

Etymology

It is the neuter of the adjective arvus (“ploughed, arable”), used as a noun.[2][1][3] De Vaan takes the adjective as primary, from Proto-Italic *arawo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂erh₃-wo- (“ploughable”), from the root of arō (“to plough”).[2] The earliest texts have the feminine ⟨arva⟩, which matches the noun Umbrian arvamen (“in the field”).[2] Cognate with Old Irish arbor (“grain”), Welsh erw (“acre”), Sanskrit उर्वरा (urvárā, “arable land”) and Ancient Greek ἄρουρα (ároura, “tilled land”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds the feminine arva in Livius Andronicus, Naevius and Pacuvius, and the neuter from Cicero on.[2] Köbler dates the word from Livius Andronicus.[4]

Semantic evolution

Arvum is “a ploughed field, arable land”, as opposed to meadow (Cicero, of the complaints of the ploughmen).[3][5] In the plural, chiefly in poetry, it is “lands, country” (arva Neptūnia, the sea; the Elysian fields), the countryside as against the town, “plains” and “the ground”, dry land as opposed to the sea, and the course of a racetrack in Statius.[3]

Church Latin glosses it “field, sown field”.[6]

Timeline

  • 280/260–before 200 BC – Livius Andronicus has the feminine arva.[2][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero has the neuter.[2][4]
  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius: fish cannot live in arvīs.[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ploughed field, arable land.[3][5][1][6]
  2. (plural) Lands, territory, country.[3]
  3. The countryside; plains; the ground.[3]
  4. (plural) Dry land.[3]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d 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. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson