bipedalis

Forms

bipedālis (neuter bipedāle); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin bi- + pēs (“foot”) + -ālis, “of two feet”.^[2][3] The TLL compares the related forms bipedus and bipedāneus.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in Cato's De agricultura, of bars for windows of two feet.^[3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

It was a common measure of length, breadth, height or thickness: Varro uses it of forked props, Caesar of beams and timber two feet thick, and Vitruvius of walls, steps and tiles.^[3][4] Cicero jokes that the sun perhaps seems two feet across to Epicurus;^[4] Horace has a man two feet tall from top to toe, and Suetonius a youth shorter than two feet.^[2][4] Pliny the Elder uses it of the height of a plant and Columella of width.^[2][4] As a neuter noun, bipedāle named a tile two feet long, in inscriptions on bricks.^[4][6][3]

In British medieval Latin it also meant two-footed, of a two-footed creature, and, in Alcuin, consisting of two metrical feet.^[7]

Timeline

• 234–149 BC – Cato uses it of window bars.^[3][5]
• 116–27 BC – Varro uses it of props.^[3][5]
• c. 50 BC – Caesar uses it of beams two feet thick.^[4][5]
• c. 84–c. 25 BC – Vitruvius uses it of walls and tiles.^[3][5]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius uses it of a youth's height.^[4][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Two feet long, broad, high or thick.^[2][4]
2. (Medieval Latin) Two-footed; of two metrical feet.^[7]

Noun

1. (neuter, bipedāle) A tile two feet long.^[4][6]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
7. ^ a b Latham, R. E., D. R. Howlett, R. K. Ashdowne, et al. (1975–2013), Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, London: British Academy / Oxford University Press