aurarius

Forms

aurārius (feminine aurāria, neuter aurārium); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin aurum (“gold”) + -ārius.^[2][1][3] Aurum goes back to Proto-Italic *auso- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂é-h₂us-o- (“glow”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on:^[3] in the Bacchides a character says that a business “of gold”, the raising of money, concerns him.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective it means concerned with or used for gold:^[2] Varro has gold scales, Pliny the Elder gold mines and a furnace for smelting gold.^[6][7] In late law auraria pensitatio or canon was a tax on trade, and susceptor aurarius its collector.^[5][6]

Used as nouns, aurārius is a goldsmith in inscriptions,^[5][7] and aurāria a gold mine in Tacitus, also a woman working or dealing in gold.^[6][5] Medieval Latin kept aurarius for the goldsmith and also used it for a gold-washer.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus speaks of a business concerned with gold.^[4][9]
• 116–27 BC – Varro mentions scales for weighing gold.^[6][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder has gold mines and a furnace for gold.^[6]
• 98–115 AD – Tacitus uses the feminine aurāria for a gold mine.^[6][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Concerned with or used for gold.^[2][6]
2. (Late Latin, law) auraria pensitatio, aurarius canon: a tax on trade.^[5][6]

Noun

1. A goldsmith.^[5][7][8]
2. (Medieval Latin) A gold-washer.^[8]
3. (feminine, aurāria) A gold mine; a woman working or dealing in gold.^[6][5]

Word family

• aurāria

Usage notes

Servius explains aurārii as supporters who make people famous by their favour, deriving it from aura (“breeze”, figuratively “favour”); the TLL, Georges and Gaffiot treat this as a separate word.^[4][5][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
8. ^ a b c Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de