benna

Forms

benna f (genitive bennae); first declension^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Gaulish benna: Festus calls it a Gaulish word for a kind of vehicle.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Köbler compares Proto-Indo-European *bʰendʰ- (“to bind”).^[5]

It survives in Italian benna and French banne and benne.^[2][1] Lewis & Short and Georges note that a wicker cart was still called banne in Belgium and benne in Switzerland.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only ancient record is in Festus (in Paul the Deacon's epitome), who says that benna is Gaulish for a kind of vehicle, and that those who sat in the same benna were called combennōnēs.^[2][6][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Georges takes it to be a two-wheeled cart with a wicker body.^[4] In medieval Latin it names a container or basket: Hincmar's life of Saint Remigius tells how bread and meat were placed in a vessel “commonly called a benna”.^[7][8] It was also a measure, of spelt in a charter of Saint-Bertin^[7] and of dry goods in a Savoy survey of 1309.^[8] Köbler records it as a measure of grain in 1206.^[5]

Timeline

• 8th century AD – Paul the Deacon's epitome of Festus records it as a Gaulish word for a vehicle.^[5][2]
• 1206 – It is used of a measure of grain.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kind of cart, probably a two-wheeled one with a wicker body.^[6][3][4]
2. (Medieval Latin) A basket, container.^[7][8]
3. (Medieval Latin) A measure of grain.^[7][8][5]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
3. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
8. ^ a b c d du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre