aurifer

Forms

aurifer (feminine aurifera, neuter auriferum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin aurum (“gold”) + -fer (“bearing”).^[2][3][4] The noun aurum goes back to Proto-Italic *auso- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂é-h₂us-o- (“glow”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL calls it a poets' word from Catullus on.^[6] Catullus speaks of the gold-bearing river Tagus, amnis aurifer Tagus,^[2][7] and Cicero, in a verse translation from Sophocles, of the dragon watching the tree of golden fruit in the garden of the Hesperides.^[6][8]

Semantic evolution

It was used of rivers whose sands carry gold, the Tagus above all, in the Tibullan corpus, Ovid, Pliny the Elder and Martial;^[2][9] of gold mines in Lucan and Statius; and of lands and peoples rich in gold in Martial, Florus and Silius Italicus.^[2][8] In myth it described golden fruit and treasure: Valerius Flaccus has the grove of the Golden Fleece.^[2] Georges takes Seneca's golden spoils of the watchful serpent as shining like gold.^[9]

Medieval writers kept it for gold-bearing rivers such as the Tagus and the Rhine, and also used it for gilded.^[10][11] Learned borrowings include French aurifère, Italian aurifero and English auriferous, first recorded in 1727.^[1][3]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the tree with golden fruit.^[6][12]
• 81/79–52/50 BC – Catullus uses it of the river Tagus.^[2][12]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of the Tagus.^[2][12]
• 39–65 AD – Lucan uses it of gold mines.^[2][12]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of the sands of the Tagus.^[2][12]
• 1727 – English borrows it as auriferous.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Producing gold, gold-bearing (of a mine, a land or a people).^[2][8]
2. (of a river or its sands) Carrying gold.^[2][9]
3. (mythology) Bearing golden fruit.^[2][8]
4. Golden, shining like gold.^[9]
5. (Medieval Latin) Gilded.^[10][11]

Related words

• aurāria
• aurārius
• aurāta
• aurātilis
• aurātūra
• aurātus
• aureātus
• aureolus
• English auriferous

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
8. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
10. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de