aspis

Forms

aspis f (genitive aspidis); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἀσπίς (aspís, “round shield; asp”).^[2][3][1][4] Lewis and Short note that in Greek the word usually meant a shield and only rarely the snake, while in Latin the order is reversed.^[3]

Isidore of Seville, as the TLL reports, explained the name from the snake's bite, which injects and spreads poison, taking it from a Greek word for poison.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero is the first author the dictionaries cite for it, of the venomous snake, the asp.^[2][3][4]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it named the venomous snake of North Africa, the asp,^[2] and it occurs in Cicero, Lucan and Pliny the Elder, often with the Greek accusatives aspida and aspidas.^[2][3] In Justinian's Novels it is also used, as in Greek, for a shield.^[3][7]

The word passed into Ecclesiastical and Medieval Latin as a name for the asp or adder,^[8][9] and medieval glosses equate it with vipera.^[10] Prudentius treats it as masculine.^[7]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero names the asp.^[2][4]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder writes about the asp and its bite.^[3][4]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville explains the name from the snake's poison.^[5][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The asp, a venomous snake of North Africa; a viper.^[2][3][8]
2. (Late Latin) A shield.^[3][7]

Usage notes

Lewis and Short cite Cicero for the danger of a hidden asp: si scieris aspidem occulte latere uspiam “if you knew that an asp was lurking somewhere unseen”.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
5. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
7. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften