ascia
Pronunciation
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
- A carpenter's axe or adze.[3][8][9]
- A mason's trowel.[3][8]
- sub asciā “under the trowel”: on tomb inscriptions, apparently of a monument still being built.[3][2]
- A mattock or hoe.[8][2]
Word family
- asciō
- asciola
References
- ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ 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
- ^ 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
- ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
- ^ 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
- ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
- ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
- ^ 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