bracatus

Forms

brācātus (feminine brācāta, neuter brācātum); first/second-declension adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin brācae (“trousers”) + -ātus, “wearing trousers”.^[2][3][1] The noun is probably from Gaulish *brāca, which may itself come from Germanic.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero uses it in the Prō Fonteiō, picturing men “in cloaks and trousers”, sagātōs brācātōsque, and also speaks of nātiōnēs brācātae.^[3][4][5]

Semantic evolution

Trousers were not worn by the Romans,^[1] so the word served as an epithet for foreign, barbarian or effeminate peoples, such as Gauls, Getae and Medes.^[4] Pomponius Mela notes that the part of Gaul later called Narbonensis was once called brācāta, and the masculine plural named its inhabitants.^[2]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of trousered Gauls.^[3][5]
• 43/44 AD – Pomponius Mela says that Gallia Narbonensis was formerly called brācāta.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Wearing trousers or breeches.^[2][4]
2. (by extension) Foreign, barbarian, effeminate.^[4][1]
3. An epithet of the part of Gaul later called Narbonensis;^[2] (masculine plural, as a noun) its inhabitants.^[2]

References

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