ballo

Forms

ballō (present infinitive ballāre, perfect active ballāvī, supine ballātum); first conjugation^[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Ancient Greek βαλλίζω (ballízō, “to dance, jump about”), a verb Wiktionary describes as used in the Sicilian dialects of Magna Graecia.^[2][3][1] Lewis and Short and Gaffiot compare it also with βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”);^[4][5] Wiktionary allows that it may only share a root with that verb, Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to throw”), or be connected with πάλλω (pállō, “to swing, shake”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found in Commodian and in a sermon of Augustine,^[6] meaning to dance: Augustine blames those who come to the martyrs' festivals inebriando, ballando, verba turpia decantando “getting drunk, dancing, singing obscene words”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Late Latin it is a word of the preachers and the councils, nearly always used of dancing they condemned.^[2] A sermon once ascribed to Augustine calls the custom of dancing a leftover from the pagans, and Caesarius of Arles puts ballare beside singing obscene songs and leaping in the devil's way.^[2] Church canons forbade Christians going to weddings to dance or sing.^[2][5] Medieval writers kept it in the same sense,^[7] and it lived on in the Romance languages, as Italian ballare and Old French baller,^[2] whence French bal and English ball “a dance”.^[4]

Timeline

• 354–430 AD – Augustine uses it of dancing at the martyrs' festivals.^[2][8]
• first half of the 6th century AD – Caesarius of Arles lists it among the pagan customs to be given up.^[2][8]

Meanings

Verb

1. (Late Latin) To dance.^[4][3][5][7]

Word family

• ballātor
• ballātrīx

Related words

• English ball

Usage notes

A second ballo found in a Greek–Latin glossary is a sea creature, the whale (compare balaena).^[3][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
6. ^ Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
7. ^ a b Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre