baubor

Forms

baubor (present infinitive baubārī, perfect active baubātus sum); first conjugation, deponent^[1] An active baubō, baubāre is found in Isidore and the glossaries.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is an onomatopoeic word, imitating the sound of a dog.^[2][3][4] The OLD compares Ancient Greek βαΰζω (baǘzō, “to bark”),^[5] and Pokorny puts it with that verb and βαὺ (baù), the Greek “bow-wow”, under a root Proto-Indo-European *bau- (“sound of barking”);^[6] the TLL compares Lithuanian baũbti (“to low”), which Pokorny explains as used of the roaring of cattle.^[2][6] Wiktionary treats such an inherited root as possible only if the Greek and Lithuanian words are cognates.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only literary use in Classical Latin is in Lucretius, who describes dogs that dēsertī baubantur in aedibus, “howl in deserted houses”, as one of the many sounds animals make.^[7][2][5]

Semantic evolution

Lewis & Short take it as a gentler barking, beside the angry lātrāre.^[7] Döderlein distinguishes three words: lātrāre is the hostile bark of a large dog, gannīre the harmless yelp of a small one, and baubārī the whining and howling of a dog.^[8] Suetonius, in his work on the cries of animals, lists it beside lātrāre as the voice of dogs, and the glossaries explain it by lātrāre and by Ancient Greek ὑλακτοῦσιν (hulaktéō).^[2][3] A glossary says that baubāre belongs to dogs as gannīre belongs to foxes.^[3][2]

In Medieval Latin Aldhelm still writes of dogs barking with it,^[9] and the MLW records it figuratively, of a heretic who “barked” his errors and of idle, wordy chatter.^[9]

Timeline

• 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of dogs howling in empty houses.^[2][5][10]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius lists it among the cries of dogs.^[2][3][10]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore of Seville uses the active baubat beside lātrat.^[2][10]
• 639–709 AD – Aldhelm writes of dogs barking.^[9][10]
• second third of the 9th century – Gottschalk of Orbais uses it of a heretic barking out his teaching.^[9][10]
• 1054–1056 – Arnulf uses it of foolish chatter.^[9][10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (of dogs) To bay, howl, bark.^[5][7][3]
2. (Medieval Latin, figurative) To bark out (doctrine), to rail.^[9]
3. (Medieval Latin) To chatter idly.^[9]

Related words

• lātrō
• ganniō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
4. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
5. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
7. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Döderlein, Ludwig (1874), Döderlein’s Hand-book of Latin Synonymes, tr. H. H. Arnold, Andover: W. F. Draper
9. ^ a b c d e f g Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
10. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de