augmentum

Forms

augmentum n (genitive augmentī); second declension^[1] Manuscripts also write augumentum, and glosses have the same spelling.^[2][3][4] The spellings aucmentum and aumentum also occur.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is from Latin augeō (“to increase”) + -mentum.^[6][1][3] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *augejō and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewg- (“to grow, increase”).^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Varro, in De lingua Latina, explains it as a term of sacrifice: the piece cut from the liver of the victim and offered “for the sake of increasing”.^[6][4][8]

Semantic evolution

The TLL finds it very rare before the second century AD, with one instance each in Varro and Seneca the Elder, and frequent afterwards down to the latest Latin.^[4] Seneca the Elder has it of fire which the ocean might feed, the sense of what gives growth.^[6][4] From then on it is the ordinary word for an increase or growth: of the waxing moon in Palladius, of a dowry or an estate in the Digest, of rivers in flood in Ammianus and Cassiodorus, and in the plural for increments.^[6][2][3][4] Ammianus speaks of a tax increase.^[3] The Vulgate uses it for the growth of the body, and in Colossians for growing in augmentum Deī.^[2] Arnobius has it, like Varro, for pieces of the sacrifice, and in the cookery book of Apicius it seems to name a fatty gut used to wrap food.^[4][3]

Medieval British records use it for an increase in number, size or strength, for a payment by a sheriff for the right to farm a county, and once for a piece added to a garment.^[5] Italian aumento continues it.^[9]

Timeline

• 116–27 BC – Varro names a piece of the sacrificial victim by it.^[6][4][8]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius writes of multiplied increments.^[6][8]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius mentions the sacrificial pieces.^[4][3][8]
• 390–406 AD – The Vulgate speaks of the growth of the body.^[2][8]
• 533 AD – The Digest weighs increase against decrease.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. Increase, growth; of the moon, waxing.^[6][2][3]
2. An amount of increase, increment.^[6][2]
3. (religion) A piece of the victim's liver offered in sacrifice.^[6][4][3]
4. That which feeds or makes something grow.^[6]
5. (cooking) Perhaps a fatty gut, a caul.^[3][4]
6. (Medieval Latin) A payment by a sheriff for the right to farm a county.^[5]

Word family

• augmentō
• superaugmentum

Related words

• incrēmentum
• auctiō
• English augment

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b c 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
6. ^ 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
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier