Etymologically
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bractea

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Forms

bractea f (genitive bracteae); first declension[1] The OLD, the TLL and Georges head it as brattea.[2][3][4] Apuleius has the spelling bracteis.[2] The Appendix Probi prescribes brattea, not brattia.[5]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.[2][3][6][7] Lewis and Short suggest a link with Ancient Greek βράχω (brákhō, “to rattle”).[8][1] Isidore of Seville, who defines it as the thinnest sheet of gold, connected the name with a Greek word imitating a crackling sound.[9][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first known use is in Lucretius, who names cobwebs and gold leaf together as the finest of things (aranea bratteaque auri).[8][4][10]

Semantic evolution

Virgil has the gold leaf rattling in a light breeze (leni crepitabat brattea vento), and Ovid thin gold leaf covering wood.[8][4] Pliny the Elder uses it of silver foil laid under gems, of a kind of beaten gold called brattea quaestoria, and of thin layers of wood, veneers.[4][8] Martial calls the golden fleece of Spanish sheep a “living” brattea,[4][10] and Solinus uses the plural figuratively for the tinsel of style.[8][11]

Medieval Latin kept the sense of gold leaf or a gold plate.[12] Modern botanical Latin used it for a small leaf below a flower, the source of the English word bract.[6]

Timeline

  • 96–55 BC – Lucretius uses it of gold leaf.[8][7]
  • 70–19 BC – Virgil uses it of rattling gold leaf.[8][7]
  • 43 BC–AD 18 – Ovid uses it of gold leaf over wood.[8][7]
  • 23/24–79 AD – Pliny the Elder uses it of metal foil and wood veneers.[4][7]
  • 40–102/103 AD – Martial uses it of a golden fleece.[4][7]
  • 1st half of the 3rd century AD – Solinus uses it figuratively of style.[8][7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A thin sheet of metal, especially gold leaf; foil.[2][8][4]
  2. A thin layer of wood, veneer.[8][4]
  3. (poetic) bractea viva: the golden fleece of sheep.[4][10]
  4. (figurative, plural) Show, tinsel, superficial glitter of style.[8][11][13]

Word family

  • bracteātus
  • English bract

Usage notes

Thicker plates of metal were called lāminae;[8][4] bractea was the thin leaf.[8][4]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 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 k l Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
  5. ^ Appendix Probi, a late antique list of correct and censured Latin word forms ("calida non calda"); ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini IV, Leipzig 1864, 197–199.
  6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Isidore of Seville, Etymologiarum sive Originum libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911).
  10. ^ a b c Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
  11. ^ a b Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
  12. ^ Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  13. ^ VoLat: Vocabolario della Lingua Latina (2018), Milan: Hoepli