ascia

Forms

ascia f (genitive asciae); first declension^[1] The best manuscripts of Cicero and Apuleius spell it ascea.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[5] The word resembles Ancient Greek ἀξίνη (axī́nē, “axe”), Old High German acchus (“axe”) and Old English æx (“axe”),^[5][3] but de Vaan notes that /ks/ between vowels is usually kept in Latin, as in axis and texō, so it cannot come straight from a PIE form with /ks/, and the forms of the other languages cannot be traced to one Indo-European form.^[5] He suggests a loanword beginning /aks-/ whose consonants were reversed to /ask-/ before it entered Latin, as in viscum.^[5] Wiktionary reports an older view that derives it from Proto-Indo-European *h₂egʷs-ih₂- (“axe”), from *h₂eḱ- (“sharp”).^[1] Isidore of Seville derived the name from the chips, hastulae, that it takes off the wood.^[6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is a rule of the Twelve Tables quoted by Cicero, rogum asceā nē polītō “do not smooth the pyre with an axe”.^[3][2][7]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it is above all the carpenter's axe or adze, used to hew and smooth timber;^[8][2] Döderlein sets it apart from secūris, the axe for cutting meat.^[9] Pliny names it among the tools that Daedalus invented.^[3][2] Vitruvius and Palladius use it of the mason's trowel, with which lime is worked as wood is hewn,^[3][2] and Palladius also of a farm tool with a hoe on its back.^[8][2] To drive an axe into one's own leg was a proverb for harming oneself: ipse mihi asciam in crūs impēgī “I struck the axe into my own leg” (Petronius).^[3][2]

On tombstones, chiefly in Gaul and above all around Lyon, the formula sub asciā dedicāre “to dedicate under the trowel” is common, often with a trowel carved on the stone.^[2][8] Its meaning is still unclear; the TLL and the OLD think it marked a monument dedicated before the work was finished.^[2][3] In Medieval Latin it remained an axe or adze,^[10] and it lives on in Italian ascia, Catalan aixa and Old French aisse.^[1][2]

Timeline

• c. 450 BC – The Twelve Tables forbid smoothing a funeral pyre with an axe.^[3][2][7]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of a mason's trowel.^[3][2][7]
• before 66 AD – Petronius has the proverb of striking the axe into one's own leg.^[3][2][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder names it among the inventions of Daedalus.^[3][2][7]
• 1st third of the 8th century AD – Bede has secūrim atque asciam in manū ferēns “carrying an axe and an adze in his hand”.^[10][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A carpenter's axe or adze.^[3][8][9]
2. A mason's trowel.^[3][8]
3. sub asciā “under the trowel”: on tomb inscriptions, apparently of a monument still being built.^[3][2]
4. A mattock or hoe.^[8][2]

Word family

• asciō
• asciola

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
10. ^ 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