balneator
Forms
balneātor m (genitive balneātōris, feminine balneātrīx); third declension[1] Plautus also has the spelling balineātor.[2] Georges gives balineator and balnitor as by-forms.[3]
Etymology
It is from Latin balneum (“bath”) + -ātor.[4][1] Its base balneum was taken from Ancient Greek βαλανεῖον (balaneîon, “bath”).[4][1]
Earliest recorded meaning
It is first found in Plautus, meaning a bath attendant or bath keeper.[5][6][2]
Semantic evolution
The word kept the one meaning, a man who ran or looked after a bath;[5] Lewis & Short give the Greek equivalent βαλανεύς (balaneús).[5] Cicero uses it in the speech for Caelius and in the Philippics,[3][7] and Pliny the Elder also has it.[7]
Timeline
- c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it in the Poenulus and the Rudens.[2][3][6]
- 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it in his speeches.[3][7]
- 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it.[7]
- c. 400 AD – Servius comments on its gender.[3]
Meanings
Noun
Usage notes
According to Servius and Probus the word could be of common gender, so that a woman could be called haec balneātor,[5][3] though there is also a feminine form, balneātrīx.[5][1]
References
- ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
- ^ a b c d e f g Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
- ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
- ^ a b c d Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.