bimaris

Forms

bimaris (neuter bimare); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin bi- + mare (“sea”) + -is, “having two seas”.^[2][1][3] De Vaan traces mare to Proto-Italic *mari- (“sea, lake”) and Proto-Indo-European *mor-i- (“sea, lake”), a word that named any large body of water.^[4] Cognate with Old Irish muir (“sea”), Lithuanian mãrės and Old High German mari (“sea, lake”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Horace,^[3] who in an ode speaks of the walls of Corinth between two seas: bimarisve Corinthī moenia.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

It was above all an epithet of Corinth and its isthmus, and Lewis and Short call it a favourite word of Ovid.^[5][2] Seneca's Oedipus and Statius use it the same way,^[2] and Rutilius Namatianus applies it to a coast and Ausonius to the Pyrenees.^[6] Georges gives the Greek equivalents διθάλασσος (dithálassos) and ἀμφιθάλασσος (amphithálassos).^[6] Lucan uses it more loosely, of a tide connected with two seas.^[2]

Ausonius also uses it figuratively, in an epigram, of a taste for unnatural vice.^[5][6]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of Corinth.^[2][3]
• 43 BC–18 AD – Ovid uses it of Corinth and of the Isthmus.^[2][3]
• 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca uses it in his Oedipus.^[2][3]
• c. 310–394 AD – Ausonius uses it of the Pyrenees and, figuratively, of a vice.^[6][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Lying between two seas, washed by two seas (of Corinth and its isthmus).^[2][5]
2. Of or connected with two seas.^[2]
3. (figurative) Of a vice: unnatural.^[5][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 Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn