balo

Forms

bālō (present infinitive bālāre, perfect active bālāvī, supine bālātum); first conjugation, no passive^[1] Varro has the spelling baelare (or belare).^[2][3][4] A form bēlō is found in glosses.^[5]

Etymology

It is onomatopoeic, imitating the bleating of sheep.^[5][2][6] Renderings of that sound vary between /aː/ and /eː/ in the Indo-European languages, as in English baa.^[5] De Vaan thinks the verb took its suffix from ululō “to howl”, itself a reduplicated sound word;^[5] the forms that Walde, Hofmann, Ernout and Meillet compare belong rather with fleō “to weep”.^[5] Wiktionary compares Ancient Greek βῆ (bê), the sheep's cry, and bēbō (“to yell”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is found from Plautus on,^[5][3][7] meaning “to bleat”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the plain sense,^[2][3] the present participle became a standing epithet of sheep, and as a noun balantes meant simply “sheep”: Ennius has hostiis balantibus, “with bleating victims”, and Lucretius, Virgil and Juvenal follow.^[2][3] Varro has the joke satis balasti, “you have bleated enough”, that is, talked enough about sheep.^[3][4] The Vulgate uses it of goats.^[4]

Arnobius uses it figuratively for talking nonsense,^[3][4] a sense also given for Ecclesiastical Latin.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus uses it for bleating.^[3][7]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius calls sacrificial sheep “bleating victims”.^[2][7]
• 116–27 BC – Varro jokes satis balasti.^[3][4][7]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses balantes for sheep.^[2][7]
• 297–310 AD – Arnobius uses it for talking nonsense.^[3][4][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bleat, baa.^[2][3]
2. (present participle) Bleating, as an epithet of sheep;^[2][3] (plural, as a noun) sheep.^[2][3]
3. To bleat (of goats).^[4]
4. (figurative) To talk nonsense.^[3][4][8]

Word family

• bālitō
• bālātus
• dībālō

Usage notes

Varro explained that the sheep's voice sounds like be, so that the Romans said be-lare, which later lost a letter.^[6]

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 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 j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f 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 Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
8. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson