botulus

Forms

botulus m (genitive botulī); second declension^[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.^[2] The OLD takes it as probably borrowed from Oscan or Umbrian, formed with the suffix -ulus on a root ⟨*gu̯ot-⟩ that it compares with Gothic 𐌵𐌹𐌸𐌿𐍃 (qiþus, “belly, womb”).^[3] Köbler likewise calls it an Osco-Umbrian loanword and refers it to Proto-Indo-European *gʷet- (“swelling”),^[4] and Wiktionary compares Proto-Germanic *kweþuz (“belly, womb”) and German Kuttel (“chitterlings”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Gellius reports that Laberius, in a mime called Saturnalia, used botulus for a sausage, the ordinary word being farcimen;^[2][5] Gellius treats it as a vulgar word.^[5] The first surviving text to use it is Petronius' novel.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the 1st century AD it named a sausage or black pudding in Petronius and Martial.^[3][7][6] In the plural Tertullian used it of the intestines,^[7][6] and Mamertus Claudianus of the bowels too.^[7] It lived on in Medieval Latin as a word for sausage, used for instance by Agnellus of Ravenna,^[8][9] and Du Cange also records a fish of that name in the statutes of Piacenza.^[9] Through the Medieval Latin word, German coined Botulismus for sausage poisoning, which became the English word botulism in 1878.^[10]

Timeline

• 60–66 AD – Petronius uses it for a sausage.^[6][4]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it for a sausage.^[7][4]
• c. 165 AD – Gellius quotes it from Laberius as a vulgar word for a sausage.^[5][2][4]
• c. 160–220 AD – Tertullian uses the plural for the intestines.^[7][6][4]
• 1878 – English botulism is formed from the Medieval Latin word, through German.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sausage; a black pudding.^[3][5][6]
2. (plural) The intestines, bowels.^[7][6]
3. (Medieval Latin) A kind of fish.^[9]

Word family

• botellus
• botulārius

Related words

• English botulism

References

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