bipalium

Forms

bipālium n (genitive bipāliī or bipālī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin bi- (“two, double”) + pāla (“spade”) + -ium.^[2][1][3] Georges compares bisellium (“seat for two”), formed in the same way from sella (“seat”).^[4] De Vaan lists pāla (“long-handled spade”) among the derivatives of pangō (“to fasten, fix”) and derives it from an instrument noun Proto-Italic *pāg-slo- (“spade, pole”); the verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ph₂-n-ǵ- (“to attach”).^[5] Cognate with Ancient Greek πήγνυμι (pḗgnumi, “to fix, join”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The TLL's earliest citations are from Cato's farm manual, which says that a place should be worked with the double spade so that the soil is soft, and tells the farmer to turn the earth with it.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

It was a farm tool for deep digging or trenching, a double spade or mattock.^[2][6] Varro, Columella and Pliny the Elder use it in the same phrases as Cato, of breaking up ground or new land with it.^[6][3][4] By metonymy it also meant the depth of such digging, two spits deep: Columella has soil dug to a double spade's depth, and Pliny ground trenched three feet deep with a deep bipalium.^[4][6] An ancient glossary explains it as an iron farm tool.^[3]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of turning the earth.^[3][7]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it in his work on farming.^[6][7]
• 1st century AD – Columella uses it of soil dug to a double spade's depth.^[4][7]
• 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of deep trenching.^[4][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A double spade or mattock, for digging deep or trenching.^[2][6]
2. (by metonymy) The depth of a double spit.^[4]

Related words

• pāla
• bis
• pangō

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
4. ^ a b c d e f Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de