bacillum

Forms

bacillum n (genitive bacillī); second declension^[1] Apuleius writes baccillum,^[2] and Isidore has a masculine bacillus.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Latin baculum (“staff, walking stick”) + -lum, a diminutive.^[2][3][4][1] De Vaan thinks the base word is probably a loanword from an unidentified source, since words in ⟨*bak-⟩ for a staff or peg turn up in several languages and PIE /b/ was very rare.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The OLD's first example is in Lucilius, who says of the Cyclops that his little staff was bigger than a ship's mast: huic maius bacillum quam malus navi.^[2][5] De Vaan dates it from Afranius.^[4]

Semantic evolution

It is a small stick or staff: Varro describes a curved wooden stick with a little iron saw at its end used for reaping in Picenum,^[5] and Juvenal and Cicero also use it.^[3] In particular it was the staff carried by the lictors: Cicero complains of lictors who went before magistrates not with staffs but with the fasces.^[2][3] Apuleius uses it for the shaft of a weapon and spells it ⟨baccillum⟩.^[2]

Isidore of Seville has a masculine bacillus.^[3] Ecclesiastical Latin kept the sense of staff or rod.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius uses it of the Cyclops' staff.^[2][5][7]
• second half of the 2nd century BC – De Vaan finds it in Afranius.^[4][7]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the lictors' staffs.^[2][3][7]
• c. 125–175 AD – Apuleius uses it for the shaft of a weapon.^[2][7]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville has the masculine bacillus.^[3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small stick or staff, a wand;^[2][3][6] the shaft or handle of a weapon.^[2][1]
2. A lictor's staff, as distinct from the fasces.^[2][3]

Word family

• imbēcillus

Related words

• baculum

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
7. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de