barbula

Forms

barbula f (genitive barbulae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is a diminutive formed from Latin barba (“beard”) + -ula.^[1][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lucilius is the first to have it,^[2][3] in the phrase barbula prima, “the first little beard”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

It is a little beard, such as young Romans wore: Cicero contrasts “this little beard” with the shaggy one seen on old statues.^[4][3] Pliny the Elder transferred it to plants.^[4] As a cognomen it was borne by Quintus Aemilius Barbula, named in the consular Fasti and by Livy.^[1][4]

Timeline

• c. 180–102 BC – Lucilius speaks of “the first little beard”.^[3][5]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero contrasts the fashionable little beard with the bristly beard of old statues.^[4][3]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of plants.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A little beard.^[1][4]
2. (of plants) A beard-like growth.^[4]
3. (masculine, as a cognomen) Barbula.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de