Etymologically
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barbitos

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ˈbar.bɪ.tɔs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [ˈbar.bi.tos][1]

Forms

barbitos m[1] It is found almost only in the nominative, the accusative barbiton and the vocative barbite.[2][3] Ovid makes it feminine once.[2][4] Ausonius has a neuter plural barbita,[2][5] and Martianus Capella a neuter barbiton.[6]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek βάρβιτος (bárbitos, “lyre”).[4][1][7] Köbler, following Frisk, calls the Greek word a foreign word of unknown origin.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lewis and Short find it only from the Augustan period.[2] Horace addresses his lyre: age dīc Latīnum, barbite, carmen, “come, lyre, sing a Latin song”.[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It names a lyre, properly one of lower pitch;[4] Georges adds that it originally differed from the lyra by its deeper tone and greater number of strings but was often confused with it.[5] It remained a word of poetry, used by Ovid, Statius, Claudian and Sidonius,[2][6][5] and church Latin knew it as a lute or lyre.[8]

Timeline

  • 65–8 BC – Horace addresses his lyre as barbite.[2][7]
  • 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it in the Heroides.[2][7]
  • c. 45–96 AD – Statius uses it in the Silvae.[6][7]
  • c. 310–394 AD – Ausonius uses the neuter plural barbita.[2][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A lyre, properly one of lower pitch; a lute.[4][2][5]

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 Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  6. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  7. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson