aviarium

Forms

aviārium n (genitive aviāriī or aviārī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Latin avis (“bird”) + -ārium, with the suffix of places.^[2][1] Georges and Gaffiot treat it as the neuter noun of the adjective aviārius (“of birds”).^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero has it, in a letter to his brother Quintus, for a poultry-house or aviary.^[4][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Varro, in his work on farming, contrasts the old aviaries of the ancestors, one on the ground for hens and one above for pigeons, with those of his own day, which go by another name.^[7] Virgil uses the plural poetically for the wild haunts of birds: sanguineisque inculta rubent aviaria bacis (“and the untended haunts of birds glow red with blood-red berries”).^[2][5]

English borrowed it in the 1570s as aviary.^[8]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it for a poultry-house or aviary.^[4][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro describes the aviaries of old and new villas.^[7][6]
• 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it for the haunts of wild birds.^[2][6]
• 1570s – Borrowed into English as aviary.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An enclosure for keeping birds, an aviary; a poultry-house.^[2][4][5]
2. (poetic, plural) A haunt of wild birds.^[2][5]

Related words

• avis
• aviārius
• English aviary

Usage notes

Servius, on Virgil's line, explains aviaria as secluded groves that birds frequent, and Isidore as secret places away from the road (a via) or reachable only by birds.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
5. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T. (1890), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: American Book Company
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com